


The Inimical Prey

by BlueNeutrino



Category: Alien vs Predator (2004), Doctor Who
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Horror, Suspense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-26
Updated: 2016-04-23
Packaged: 2018-06-04 00:11:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 18
Words: 47,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6632884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueNeutrino/pseuds/BlueNeutrino
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor goes to investigate a distress signal from a stranded space crew, but gets more than he bargained for when he discovers the planet they've crashed on is infested with xenomorphs and a hunter species that views humans as fair game.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Call For Help

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally written and posted on fanfiction.net five years ago. I'm sure the standard of writing is therefore below what I am capable of now, but at the time I worked very hard on this, edited it a lot, and most importantly to me, finished. It remains one of only two many-multi-chapter fics that I have been able to complete. I've finally decided to begin the process of cross-posting it here, although I am not so active in either fandom anymore, but it feels like a good way to archive what my seventeen year old self was able to achieve.
> 
> Set between "The Runaway Bride" and "Smith and Jones".

As usual, he didn't really know where he was going. He normally made decisions as to what his next destination might be on the spur of the moment, or he let the Tardis decide for him, but just this once he didn't really feel like going _anywhere._ He was happy to just drift along rather aimlessly through the Orion Nebula until finally something came along to spur him into action.

Truth was, he didn't have much enthusiasm for doing anything at the moment. He still couldn't forget about Rose. All that business with the Racnoss had been a distraction, but it hadn't lasted. He couldn't get her face out of his head, the way she'd looked the last time he saw her. The final time he would ever see her. As much as he missed her, it wasn't just the sense of loss that was eating away at him: it was a feeling of anger too, directed at himself for choosing the wrong time to hesitate. He'd had one chance to say it to her, and he'd blown it. And that was something he'd never forgive himself for.

What he needed was to get away from Earth for a while. The memories of her were still too raw for him to want to stay there much longer. He'd return there eventually, of course: he always did. He knew from experience it wouldn't hurt this bad forever, and it probably wouldn't be all that long before he found himself itching to be back in 21st century London. But right now he just needed to get away.

He hadn't been specific in his destination, but just set the Tardis on a generic course into the future a few degrees east of Betelgeuse. And now here he was, waiting for something to happen even though there didn't seem to be any signs of spacecraft or inhabited planets for lightyears around. He was beginning to think about where he could go and that it would help take his mind off things if he could just make a definite decision, but then something started blinking on one of the screens of the Tardis' console and a beeping noise began to sound.

"Alright, what have you found?" the Doctor said aloud, partly to the Tardis and partly just to break the silence. He didn't like it being this quiet; he always liked to have someone around to explain things to, but he was on his own now.

Intrigued, he quickly found the relevant screen and rotated it on its stand to get a better look at it. The screen was reporting the receipt of a transmission, but that didn't entirely make sense. The Tardis was ten lightyears into the nebula, which was made up almost entirely of rock, hydrogen and dust: there was nowhere for the transmission to be coming from. _Unless,_ the Doctor thought, _I'm picking up an echo, or an old signal of some sort._ Flicking a few more switches and pressing a few buttons on the console, a stellar co-ordinate map appeared on the screen and a cross-hair began to trace the signal's location to its source star system. A six digit number began to count up and down rapidly in the top left hand corner of the screen as the Tardis' systems pinpointed the date.

After a few seconds, a big red box appeared in the middle of the display and a beep sounded as it reported the message: _Mayday Signal Detected, Location: Messier 42 IO3658, Earth Date 2261 AD._

"A mayday signal," the Doctor said to himself as he read off the screen, "I think I like mayday signals. They may mean things might be about to get dangerous, but at least you can always rely on them to be interesting." Impulsively, he'd already decided he was going to follow it. Something like this was exactly what he needed to distract him. More importantly, it was a distress call, meaning somebody out there needed his help.

He flicked a few more switches and then placed his hand on one of the levers on the Tardis' console. "Right, let's see where you're coming from," he said as he pulled the lever down. "Allons-y!" The familiar whooshing noise began to sound as the pump was activated in the central column and the Tardis shifted direction.

Had the Doctor taken time to interpret the rest of the transmission, he might have thought twice about following it blindly to its source.


	2. Crash Landing

The ride wasn't as smooth as he'd expected, and there were at least thirty seconds of severe turbulence before the Tardis materialised. Just as the journey was ending there were several loud banging sounds and the control room shook violently, causing a few sparks to fly from the grills in the floor. Unable to stay on his feet, the Doctor was knocked to the floor before the room finally went still. Getting up from where he'd fallen over by the console, the Doctor frowned and tapped one of the screens by the controls. It responded by crackling with static and the image on it shaking and blurring for a couple of seconds. Unusual. The Doctor wondered what could have caused that kind of interference – there hadn't appeared to be any excess electromagnetic activity when he'd received the signal, but there had definitely been something responsible for the rough landing and poor reception on the external monitors. He wanted to find out what it was.

He had no idea what to expect when he opened the door of the Tardis: all he knew was he was on the planet M42 IO3658, hopefully just a few minutes after the signal was first transmitted, although given the Tardis' track record it was more likely to be hours, days or even longer. As the Doctor opened the blue police box door he was met with a blast of cool air and the scent of damp pine needles. Stepping outside, he found himself in the middle of a coniferous forest, although the trees were far taller than any he'd ever seen on Earth and the foliage was so thick he found himself standing in almost complete darkness.

Looking round, he realised he could see no further than a few metres in each direction, and so reached into the inside pocket of his long brown coat to take out his sonic screwdriver. Holding it up, he pivoted in a semicircle as the tip of the device flashed blue as it scanned the area, and sure enough, he soon found the direction the signal was coming from. With a quick glance round to try and memorise the area – before realising it probably looked just like every other space in the forest – he locked the Tardis and began to head off in the direction of the signal.

After about ten minutes walking the forest opened out into a clearing several metres across, and looking up the Doctor could get a better view of the sky. It was free of clouds and a pale purplish blue colour, suggesting a high concentration of nitrogen in the upper atmosphere. From the glowing white orb of the sun low near the horizon the doctor guessed it must be either early morning or late afternoon, depending on the direction of the planet's rotation. He could also make out the shapes of three moons: two large crescent shapes and one smaller gibbous moon that was pinkish in colour.

He scanned the area with the screwdriver again and found the signal had intensified. Looking across the clearing in the direction it was coming from he could see nothing immediately and was about to set off again, but then noticed a very faint trail of grey smoke drifting above the treetops. He frowned, realising that couldn't be a good thing. He suspected that a spacecraft had crashed, probably due to the same thing that had caused the turbulence in the Tardis earlier, and as he watched the trail of smoke his curiosity was piqued even further.

He set off again across the clearing, faster now and with a greater sense of urgency, but as he reached the distant line of trees he heard the sound of something moving behind him and he quickly spun round. There was nothing there; or at least nothing he could see. Cautiously, he turned his sonic screwdriver in the opposite direction and scanned the clearing again. He let the scan go on for a few seconds longer than necessary, just to be sure, but it definitely wasn't picking up any signs of life.

Slightly puzzled and more cautious now, the Doctor gave one last quick glance around the clearing before turning and setting off again. There was something about this that gave him a sense of uneasiness, and he couldn't help but wish that Rose was still with him, so at least then he wouldn't be walking through this forest alone.

It was a further thirty minute walk before he reached the source of the smoke, but even from several hundred yards away he was able to see the light spilling onto the forest floor from where the foliage had been parted. A significantly large spaceship – Delta-class cargo vessel, by the looks of things – had crash landed in the middle of the forest. A good two acres of trees had been flattened, and it was obvious the craft's landing had been completely out of control from the way in which its starboard side thrusters had been snapped off and its rear solar wings crumpled.

The Doctor approached it slowly, feeling slightly disappointed that the distress signal had been over something as mundane as a crash landing, but he was still unable to shake off his sense of unease. He'd picked up the mayday two hundred years after its initial transmission. If whatever company that owned this ship ever recovered it then they'd deactivate the signal – so why was it still transmitting two centuries later?

As the Doctor got closer he began to wonder if maybe he should turn back. If the ship was never supposed to be found then he would be interfering with the timeline by trying to rescue whoever was stranded here, but at the same time his basic instincts to help anyone in potential danger wouldn't let him leave. Just because the distress signal would still be transmitting years into the future it didn't mean the crew of this ship wouldn't get out alive.

He was looking for a way into the ship, and spotted one of the small service hatches just a metre or two off the ground. He began to walk towards it, but once he was about five metres away he suddenly felt himself jolted back and he gave a surprised yelp as several volts of static electricity coursed through him. Brushing himself down, he took out his sonic screwdriver again and scanned the air in front of him. "Shields are still up, then," he said aloud, again talking to himself just to break the silence. He changed the setting on his screwdriver and then activated it again, and a purplish ripple of light appeared in front of him as a portion of the shield deactivated. He stepped through and headed to the door, which he opened with the sonic screwdriver and then climbed inside.

There was another airlock hatch behind the first door, but the computerised locking system was offline and it was easy for the Doctor to simply swing it open. Inside, the corridor had ended up sideways and he found there was only enough headroom to crawl rather than walk. "Hello?" he called out into the depths of the ship as he crawled further inside, but the only answer was the echo of his own voice reverberating off the metal walls.

Further down the service corridor he came across a grill in the wall that led to a larger, more open part of the ship. He unscrewed the rivets with the sonic screwdriver, smiling to himself as he realised that for once he was actually using it to unscrew screws, and then removed the grill to climb through. He found he was now in a full sized corridor, albeit one that was tilted sideways to a point that made it difficult to walk, but at least he was now able to stand up. "Hello?" he tried again, but there was still no response. The silence was slightly unnerving, but it was a large ship after all. If the crew had survived they'd no doubt be in the bridge waiting for someone to make contact. All the Doctor had to do was to find where that was.

Taking a guess, he thought it would be best to head to the front top deck of the ship, and so walked along the corridor and took the first left he came across. The interior of the ship above the cargo decks was something of a maze and he was basing most of his sense of direction on guesswork and basic instinct. Everytime he turned a corner or reached a different deck he tried calling out again, but continued to get no response. He started to look for a communication point to contact the bridge, but just as he came across what he thought might be a phone point there was a clanging sound coming from one of the air vents above him. He froze and backed away from the comms equipment to look above him. "Hello? Is anybody there?" he called out.

His initial hope that maybe he'd discovered one of the crew had immediately faded into caution. It didn't make sense for the crew to be in the air vents, and that clanging sound definitely sounded too heavy to be made by a person.

A couple more seconds passed in silence and he was about to try calling out again, but then suddenly, without warning, part of the ceiling collapsed. The creature that fell through hissed at him viciously, and he barely had time to register the oversized teeth or glossy black dome of the head before he'd turned and started to flee. Quite possibly he might recognise it if he got a better chance to look and maybe even draw up a name for it from the depths of his memory, but he really wasn't thinking about that right now.

It was time to run.


	3. The Revenant

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nope, the chapter title has nothing to do with the recent movie. It's been called this since 2011 and was actually a reference to a warship from the book "Sharpe's Trafalgar".

The creature was fast, and he knew he didn't have much chance of outrunning it for any length of time. He had to think of something quickly. Once again changing the settings on his sonic screwdriver, he pointed it behind him and sent out a burst of high frequency sonic waves towards the alien, but that didn't faze it. If anything, the noise only seemed to aggravate the creature further, and it made a semi-shrieking noise as it continued to chase him. "Perhaps that wasn't such a good idea," he thought, and quickly tried to come up with another plan.

Looking ahead of him he realised the corridor opened out into a t-junction, which meant there should be an airlock at the end of the corridor. As he approached it - with the alien getting ever closer behind him - he looked for the control point on the wall, and seeing the emergency lockdown switch he directed a sonic pulse at it from the screwdriver. It activated and the steel door dividing the corridors began to close. There should be just enough time for him to get through and leave the alien stranded on the other side, but if he'd timed it wrong then he'd be trapped in this corridor with it.

With the door only a couple of feet open and the alien practically on top of him he sprinted the last few yards to the door and dived through, before twisting round in time to see the steel door almost close completely and trap the creature in between the two pieces of metal. It continued to struggle to get at him but couldn't fit at the gap.

Breathing a sigh of relief, the Doctor leaned again the opposite wall and observed the creature with a slight sense of morbid fascination. Now that he could get a better look at it he managed to draw up a recollection of it from somewhere in his memory: a xenomorph. He'd only seen creatures like this once, and that had been a long time ago and from a distance. Back then he hadn't been allowed to interfere as he'd watched them be hunted down as trophy kills by another species, and although it had bothered him at the time he was now beginning to get a sense that maybe this was one species it wouldn't be such a terrible thing to kill. They were classed as 'dangerous vermin' under Article 36 of the Shadow Proclamation, and as far as the 'dangerous' part went he could most definitely see why.

They were vicious and lethal, with a barbed tail, razor sharp teeth, tough exoskeleton and…oh yeah, acidic blood.

He remembered that last part as the edge of the closing door began to cut into the xenomorph's flesh, and as the greenish substance of its blood spurted out the metal trapping it in the doorway began to melt away. The xenomorph continued to claw its way forward as the gap between the two pieces of steel widened.

"Ah," said the Doctor, "Not quite over yet, then."

A split second before the xenomorph finally broke free and launched itself towards him he made the decision to turn left, and started to sprint down the corridor. It began to chase him again, and as he looked up ahead he realised that the corridor he was running down terminated in a solid metal wall. He needed a turn off, but glancing left and right he couldn't see one. Using the sonic screwdriver he blew out the circuits on some of the lights in the ceiling, but the resulting minor explosions on served to slow the xenomorph down rather than stop it. It was gaining on him, and as he passed a twelve socket power jack in the wall he tried to blow that too to put more distance between him and it, but as the power point exploded the overhead panel lights flickered and then went out.

For the first time since encountering the xenomorph he felt a real sense of fear. That hadn't been supposed to happen. Now he was running in the dark, and all he had for a light was the glowing blue tip of the sonic screwdriver. After a second though he thought to turn that off too, as otherwise he'd just be giving the xenomorph something to follow. He continued to run forward, realising that at any point he was going to hit the back wall. He just needed there to be a turn off from the corridor - somewhere the xenomorph probably wouldn't follow him. He put his hand out to touch the left wall, hoping that at some point it would give way to empty space and he'd have somewhere else to run to, but it was just solid steel.

The Doctor could hear the xenomorph moving behind him, and the sound of it scrambling over the metal floor was getting closer. He was going to find a way out. He always did. Except this time he wasn't exactly sure what it might be and he was leaving it a little late to try and think of something. Suddenly, he heard something move directly above him and there was the strange shrieking sound from the xenomorph. He felt something grab his shoulders, but instead of the sharp claws of the alien it felt like human hands pulling him backwards and out of the way. He saw a few flashes of white in the darkness and heard the sound of rapid gun fire mixed in with a few more alien shrieks, and then there was silence. Silence except for the sound of his own heavy breathing, and that of at least three other people who must be standing nearby.

After a few moments of them standing in the darkness the backup lights flickered on and everything was illuminated in a dim red glow. The Doctor looked around him at the people who had just saved his life. The person standing closest to him was a young man with short dark hair and a bent nose, who the Doctor thought must have been the one who pulled him out of the way. There was also a slightly older man with a shaved head standing a couple of feet away holding a Heckler V80 pistol and with a flamethrower slung over his shoulder, but he wasn't aiming either of them. The final person the Doctor could make out was a young woman with fair hair that was tied back in a ponytail, standing over the corpse of the xenomorph watching its blood melt the floor. In her hands she held an M320 pulse rifle, which she still had pointed at the alien. Several large craters had been blasted into its head from the close range rifle rounds, and judging by the amount of acid that was spilling out it was well and truly dead.

As relief washed over him the Doctor grinned. "Well, that was good timing."

The woman suddenly turned to look at him, the look on her face angry. She brought up the pulse rifle to point at him and he instinctively took a couple of steps back. "Who are you?" she yelled at him, "How did you get in here?"

He gave a disapproving look at the rifle in her hands. "If you want me to answer that stop pointing the gun at me."

She shook her head. "I don't think so. Now tell me who you are."

He glanced up from the gun to look at her face, and even though she was trying to hide it he could still see the fear behind her hard expression. The other two men had moved to stand behind her, and it was clear to him that all three of them were scared. He could understand why they were wary of him. "I'm the Doctor" he replied, trying to sound as reassuring as possible.

"Doctor what?" she snapped.

He was a little surprised by the wording of that question. "You know, you're the first person to ask 'Doctor what?' Normally, they go for 'Doctor who?'"

She glared at him. "'Who', 'what', I don't care. But you can't just be 'The Doctor'." She said the last part with a sneer.

"But I _am_ the Doctor."

The woman gave him another glare and looked like she might press the question further, but then decided she had more important things to worry about. "Fine, _Doctor._ How did you get in here? How did _it_ get in here?"

He glanced across at the body of the xenomorph and then back to her. "You tell me."

Her expression became even more hostile "We've had the shields up to keep them _out._ It shouldn't have been able to get in, and neither should you."

"Well," he said, keeping his tone conversational despite the way he was being yelled at, "It looks like this ship did take quite a rough landing. It's no surprise parts of your shields are down."

She shook her head. "No, they were _working._ Murray made _sure_ they were working before…before they got to him. Three of our team went down before we got the power back online to get the shields up. Don't tell me they were broken."

He realised he might well have been responsible for letting the xenomorph in. Although he _had_ been the one to deactivate part of the shields, he didn't think it was a good idea to admit that while she had the gun pointed at him, so he tried to avoid the question. "Look, I can help you get out of here."

She gave him a sceptical look. "Oh yeah? How?"

"Well, you'll need somewhere safe to wait while the rescue team get here, won't you?" He was thinking of getting them back to the Tardis and staying in orbit until help arrived, but it was the bent nosed man who responded in a tone of horror.

"You mean you're _not_ the rescue team?"

The Doctor felt bad about having to disappoint him. He couldn't be blamed for hoping that help had arrived, but he didn't know that the Doctor was jut as good as any rescue team in the galaxy. "No, I just happened to pick up your distress signal and followed it here on my own. It's just me, I'm afraid, but..."

The other man butted in. "But there is a rescue team coming, right? If you picked up the signal someone else must have too?"

"Well, I was in deep space when I picked it up…" he began, and was going to explain that he didn't think there'd been anyone else around, but then he realised something else. "Hang on, isn't your company going to send a rescue team anyway once they realise their ship's missing?"

None of them responded to that, but instead they all exchanged glances with each other. The Doctor realised there must be something they weren't telling him. "This ship _did_ have a chartered flightpath, right?"

The woman looked at him and hesitated before answering. "It did. It was supposed to be docking in Maia Three four warpdays ago."

The Doctor looked puzzled. "But that's in the Outer Pleiades. What are you doing here?"

They all exchanged glances again, before the shaven-headed man answered. "Well, this isn't actually our ship."

The woman glared at him, but then looked back at the Doctor with a worried expression on her face. He raised an eyebrow at her, and she glanced down at the floor before answering. "We commandeered it, two warpdays back at Aldebaran. Did a switch with the crew and left them on a small star system cruiser while we took this one. If anyone's looking for this ship they'll be searching in the wrong place."

"Ah," said the Doctor in response. "So you're space pirates?"

"Privateers, technically," the woman said defensively.

The Doctor sighed. This made things more complicated. There were laws about aiding and abetting pirates, but that didn't mean he could leave these people here to die. "Alright," he said, "Well, if I can get you to my own ship we can get you out of here."

"You have your own ship?" the shaven haired man said.

"I do," the Doctor replied, and then added as a warning, "But there'll be no commandeering of that one. If you're going to be coming with me then I'll be handing you over to the authorities afterwards. You can't just go around stealing other people's ships."

The woman jabbed the gun at him. "You'll do no such thing. You'll get us off this planet and then take us wherever we want to go, you understand?"

He frowned at her. "Put that thing down, it isn't getting you anywhere. If you want to get out of here alive you come with me on my terms, and my terms are that you obey the law."

She didn't lower the gun, but continued to glare at him defiantly. A few seconds passed in which they both looked at each other, the Doctor's expression calm but hers angry. Eventually, she sighed and lowered the gun. "Alright."

The Doctor smiled. "Great. Now, do you mind telling me what your names are?"

He looked at the woman for an answer, but the two men answered first.

"Buzz Ellis," said the older man.

"Simon Adrick," replied the younger.

"Really?" the Doctor said, sounding a little surprised by the coincidence. So the pirate was called Adrick. He felt a stab of guilt as he was reminded of what had happened to one of his previous companions by that name, and then felt another wave of guilt as he remembered a more recent companion he'd lost. _Don't make that comparison,_ he told himself, _Adric died but Rose is alive._ _She is alive and safe, even if I'll never see her again..._ Telling himself that didn't do much to make him feel better.

"Right," he said suddenly, brushing off those thoughts as he tried to focus again on the immediate situation. There was no point dwelling on people he'd failed to save in the past when there were three other people who needed his help right now. "So that's Buzz Ellis, Simon Adrick, and…?" He nodded at each of the two men before turning his attention to the woman, waiting for her to finish that sentence.

"Ailyn Tevo," she said, her tone still hostile.

"Nice to meet you, Ailyn," he replied, contrasting her aggression with a tone that was as friendly as ever.

She snapped back. "It's _Captain_ Tevo, if you don't mind."

He raised a bemused eyebrow. She still seemed reluctant to trust him, but she was going to have to if she wanted to get out of here. "Alright, Captain. And what's the name of this ship?"

For the first time her expression changed and she gave him a rather devious looking smile. " _This,_ Doctor, is the _Revenant._ "


	4. Exit Strategy

The Doctor couldn't help but get a little excited once she'd said that. "Really?" he asked with a grin. " _The Revenant?_ As in the first ever commercial ship to be equipped with warp drive nine?"

Tevo nodded, seeming rather pleased with herself. "The very same. And we commandeered it with only a star system cruiser."

A look of elucidation spread across the Doctor's face. "So this is what happened to it!" he suddenly burst out. "I always wanted to know that. It's not quite as cool as the _Heart of Gold_ being stolen by the President of the Galaxy, but at least everyone knew what happened to that one. This one's always been a bit of a mystery; nobody ever quite worked out where it went. So it was you lot was it? You could have made history with that, if anyone ever found out it was you."

She looked at him as if he was crazy. "Right…Doctor, I have no idea what you're talking about, but you said you could get us out of here so how do we do that?"

He stopped his rambling and focussed on immediate situation again. "Ah, yes. Well, we'll need to find a way off this ship, and I got a bit lost on my way in so I'll need you to direct me."

Tevo gave him a worried look. "Get _off_ this ship? But those things are outside."

"Well, so's my ship," he replied.

She chewed her lip thoughtfully for a moment. "How did you get in here without them attacking you?"

He shrugged. "I have no idea, but I was walking through the forest for at least forty minutes and I didn't so much as see one."

Tevo frowned for a moment as if that made no sense to her, but then nodded, seeming to have reached a conclusion. "Alright, then let's go."

Ellis butted in. "Wait, what? We spent all that effort getting the shields back up and you're just going to walk back out there?"

Adrick nodded in agreement. "It's crazy! We won't last five minutes."

Tevo turned to glare at them. "Well, what other choice do we have? The fuel cell's already damaged and it's a power drain running the shields constantly at max – I doubt it's going to last a day. Would you rather wait for the power to run out or make our move now?"

They were both silent for a moment, but then nodded grimly. "Good," Tevo said, turning back to the Doctor. "How far away's your ship?"

"If you run fast enough we'll get there in twenty minutes," he answered.

She grinned. "Trust me, we're fast runners. Right, we'll need weapons to fend them off. Adrick, do you have a spare p-sec you can give the Doctor?"

Adrick glared at her.

She glared right back. "He's our only chance of getting out of here. Do you really want to him to go out there unarmed?"

Reluctantly, Adrick took a p-sec pistol out of a holster on his left hip and held it out towards the Doctor, but the Doctor shook his head. "No, I don't want a gun."

Again, Tevo gave him a look as if she thought he was crazy. "Don't feel bad about killing these things, Doctor. If you're not ruthless you'll be dead."

He still resolutely refused to take the weapon. "Whatever you intend to do with it, if you have a gun you can use it on anything. I'd rather not take that risk."

Tevo just shook her head incredulously, but Ellis grinned. "Don't worry, Doctor, no need to kill them yourself. I can do that for you," he said, brandishing the flamethrower.

The Doctor gave a disapproving frown at the pirate's enthusiasm for violence, but realised Tevo was right: they were going to have to be ruthless if they wanted to get out of here alive. "Alright," he said. "Now which way's the exit?"

"Down here," Tevo said, turning to lead them along the corridor past the corpse of the xenomorph. "And let's hope we don't come across any more of those things on the way."

Adrick looked at the carcass warily as he passed it, grimacing at the way in which it seemed to be slowly sinking into the floor as the pool of blood surrounding it slowly melted the metal away. "What _are_ these creatures anyway?"

"God knows…" Tevo began, but to the three pirates' surprise the Doctor answered.

"Xenomorphs."

Ellis looked at him and raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"Well," said the Doctor, "They don't have a name for themselves as a species, but humans call them xenomorphs."

The three of them looked at him. "How do you know that?" Adrick asked.

The Doctor shrugged. "I know a lot of stuff."

Tevo thought to question him on what he knew. "And what's exactly _is_ a xenomorph?"

"Probably one of the nastiest creatures in the universe," the Doctor replied, "Very difficult to kill, as you may have worked out; vicious temperament; acid for blood; really horrifying methods of reproduction – and I mean _really_ horrifying – double sets of jaws…"

He was continuing to list all the unpleasant aspects of the xenomorph species, but Tevo muttered something under her breath. "If a rescue team _does_ get here they'd better bring a nuclear launcher, so we can blow these things to hell…"

The Doctor stopped listing things and shot her a disapproving glance. "No, you can't do that."

She rounded on him and gave him an incredulous look. "What do mean we can't? You've just been telling me all about how they're probably the nastiest creature in the universe and now you're saying we mustn't nuke them? What kind of logic do you operate on?"

He met her ferocious glare with a look that was equally intense. "They're not exactly pleasant, I know, but this is _their_ planet and they were here first. Until you came along they'd probably never even encountered humans before and they weren't hurting anybody. They just happen to be top of the food chain on this planet, like you are on Earth or whatever colony you're from. They aren't intelligent creatures waging war on you; they're just following their instincts, and I know it might seem pretty horrific to you but the way they're behaving is completely natural. I'll help get you out of here alive but you can't come back and nuke the planet just because you found it unpleasant or scary."

She looked completely exasperated. "Why not? What if they find a way off this planet?"

Even though he could understand where she was coming from, he couldn't condone the eradication of an entire species which hadn't chosen to declare war on anybody. "They can't do that unless some other intelligent species comes along and…"

Their argument was interrupted by the sound of Adrick's worried voice. "Er, Captain? Doctor? I think there's something else we may need to be worrying about right now…"


	5. Infestation

Tevo and the Doctor stopped arguing and turned to look at Adrick, who was gazing worriedly off towards a point somewhere behind them. They followed his gaze to the far end of the corridor, and it took them a couple of seconds to work out what they were seeing before they heard Ellis say, "What in God's name is _that_?"

Even in the dim red of the emergency lights they could tell something wasn't right. The walls at the end of the corridor seemed to be caked in a sticky, gelatinous substance that clung thickly to the walls and ceiling. The Doctor took out his sonic screwdriver and scanned the area in front of him, before tucking it back into his jacket with a grim expression on his face. "Resin."

The three pirates gave him an apprehensively quizzical look. "Resin?" Ellis repeated.

The Doctor nodded. "Secreted by the xenomorphs when they're nesting."

Ellis gave a horrified glance towards the end of the corridor. "So that's…a nest?"

Again, the Doctor nodded, watching the end of the corridor warily. He turned to Tevo. "Captain, you said Murray got the shields back up before they got to him. Where exactly was Murray when he was putting the shields back up?"

Tevo had brought up her pulse rifle and had it aimed towards the end of the corridor. She didn't take her eyes off the resin as she answered. "In the engine room. It's the only part of the ship we could reboot the power from. The way this ship's designed, it's…"

"Compartmentalised," the Doctor finished, "It's got internal shields and reinforced steel doors to split each deck into quarters."

Tevo's gaze flickered away from the resin for a moment as she looked at him and raised an eyebrow. "You do know a lot."

He gave a shrug as if it was nothing special and continued to explain. "It's split into quarters as a form of improved security to protect the cargo load. If part of the ship takes damage or is attacked all power can be diverted to other sections. Segments of the ship can be isolated and put into lockdown so that nothing can get in or out of them."

She nodded, admittedly impressed by what he knew. "It was intended to be a form of protection against pirates," she said with a strong note of irony in her voice.

"Well, that didn't exactly work, did it?" he said, and there was just the faintest note of humour in his tone. "It doesn't look like it did much good at keeping the xenomorphs isolated either – your lockdown power already seems to have failed. I must say, this ship isn't quite as impressive as they made it out to be in the press release."

Tevo ignored that final sentence and continued to explain what had happened to Murray. "He started the lockdown sequence to try and trap them in the rear starboard quarter. That's the side we crash landed on, so we were going to try and make it to the portside top deck to wait for help, but it didn't go as planned. They'd already made it into the corridor by the time we initiated the lockdown sequence. Murray didn't make it out before the safedoors shut."

She seemed to be trying not to show how upset he was, and the Doctor's hearts went out to her. Even if she was a pirate she quite clearly still cared about her crew. "I'm sorry."

She didn't even seem to notice that he'd spoken. "We'd already lost Carter and Verren by then. Poor bastards," she said quietly, still staring off towards the end of the corridor with her rifle in hand.

The Doctor thought he heard Ellis and Adrick mutter something quietly to each other and this was followed by a few moments of silence, but he knew he couldn't let them stand here reflecting on the death of their comrades much longer. "Captain," the Doctor said, again addressing Tevo, "I really am sorry, but we need to keep moving. Is there another way off this ship?"

She turned to face him, and although it was hard to tell in the dim red light he thought for a moment her eyes looked rather moist, as if she were about to cry, but then her expression hardened again and when she spoke her tone was tough and businesslike. "That way leads down to the secondary cargo hatch. The primary one's landed facing the floor so we can't get out that way. We have a chance of reaching the tertiary one if we go up two decks, but we'd have to go that way through the nest to reach the main staircase. There's a service ladder back this way we could use to reach the upper decks." She turned and gestured behind them with her gun.

"Right, we'll go that way," the Doctor said just as Ellis and Adrick had begun to turn and walk the other way and Tevo took a few quick steps to get in front of them.

They'd only gone a few paces before they heard a sound from behind them. It was a strange, muffled kind of moan, and they all stood still for a moment after hearing it, trying to work out what it was. After a moment's silence it sounded again, and the three pirates glanced at each other before Tevo suddenly turned and began to run in the direction of the resin as she shouted, "It's Murray!"

Although the Doctor's first instinct upon recognising the sounds had been to go and help, he knew that in this situation it would do no good. If it was Murray and the xenomorphs had got to him then it was already too late, and right now the Doctor's priority had to be to get the rest of them out of here alive. As much as he hated abandoning the man trapped in the nest, he knew that if the others were to survive then it was their only real option. He ran after Tevo and grabbed her shoulders, trying to pull her back. "Captain, I'm sorry, but you can't go after him."

She threw him off. "Let go of me! Don't tell me I'm not allowed to nuke these monsters and then say I'm not allowed to go and save one of my own crew either, because that's just _fucked up._ I'm going after him."

Ellis was running in the direction of the resin too, but Adrick seemed slightly more apprehensive and was holding back. The Doctor still had hold of Tevo's arm and didn't want to let her go. "If he's in the nest he's as good as dead already. There's nothing more you can do for him. Look, I don't want to leave him there any more than you do, but if you go after him you'll only end up dead as well."

"Does that sound like he's dead to you?" she yelled as the agonized groans coming from Murray got louder. "He's still alive and I'm going to get him out of there!"

She broke free of his grip and ran after Ellis, who had already reached the resin and was trying to burn it away with his flamethrower. Adrick finally seemed to have made up his mind and headed after them, and the Doctor realised he had no choice but to follow.

The resin was thick and sticky and the Doctor tried to avoid touching it as much as possible, but that was difficult as he was barely able to see. The resin covered most of the emergency lights so that the only form of illumination came from Ellis's flamethrower. As he tried to keep up with them he heard the three of them shouting, "Murray? Murray?"

After a few seconds, Tevo's cry of 'Murray' turned from a question into a cry of relief, and he saw her outline run towards a distant point in the wall. He followed the light of Ellis' flamethrower to where the three pirates had convened round a bulge in the slime covering the wall, and even the Doctor couldn't help but feel slightly queasy as he saw the face protruding from it. The man stuck to the wall was moaning in pain, and as the light from the flamethrower fell on his face he blinked his eyes open. At first a look of confusion registered on his face, and then an expression of hope as he recognised the people standing in front of him. "Buzz? Si? Captain? I'm so…argh, get me…aaaaaargh!"

His attempt at speech trailed off into a scream of pain and his face contorted in agony. Tevo and Adrick ran to him and began to try and tear away the stuff holding him to the wall. "Don't worry mate, we'll get you out," he heard Adrick say.

Even though part of him wanted to help them in tearing away the resin, the Doctor still hung back. He knew what this meant, and even though he'd never seen it close up before he had academic knowledge of it. He had absolutely no idea whether it would be kinder to leave Murray in place of take him off the wall only so that he was able to writhe around in pain as he died.

Even as he watched Tevo and Adrick finally pull Murray free he knew it would do no good. Murray instantly collapsed on the floor and Tevo tried to haul him back up, but he was in too much pain. Unable to stand helplessly by, the Doctor to a step forward to kneel down next to Murray. Tevo glanced up at him with a look of desperation. "So, you're a doctor who knows everything. Do something to help him!"

The Doctor shook his head. "I can't." He looked down at Murray who was writhing in pain on the ground. "I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."

Tevo glared at him. "What do you mean _you can't_?"

The Doctor met her gaze for a moment, his expression full of regret, but then looked back at the man who was screaming in agony on the floor and arching his back as if something was trying to burst out of him. Which the Doctor knew it was. He felt completely helpless. It wasn't often that he found himself in a situation where there was genuinely nothing he could do to help, and he found himself remembering back to the last time, not that long ago, he'd felt this same sense of helplessness. Watching Rose be sucked back towards the void, screaming her name but knowing he couldn't help her…the same way he couldn't help Murray now.

"Doctor!" he was snapped out his thoughts by the sound of Tevo screaming at him, but as he looked up at her her face was suddenly spattered with blood as the chestburster finally broke free. Impressively, she didn't scream, but jumped back in shock as she stared with a look of horror at the creature that had just erupted from Murray's chest. The man had gone still now, but the alien opened its jaws and made a strange, high-pitched noise. The Doctor backed away slowly as Ellis stepped in front of him to get a better look. "Son of a…" the skinhead muttered, and then directed a burst of flame at the creature with the flamethrower on full power.

The alien screeched as it was chargrilled, but then even louder shrieks sounded from somewhere deeper into the nest. The Doctor grabbed Ellis' shoulder and jerked him away from the corpse. "Leave it! We need to get out of here."

The four of them turned and began to run back the way they came, but there was the sound of movement in front of them and as Ellis swung his flamethrower round it illuminated the shapes of several xenomorphs blocking their way. Tevo unleashed several rounds on them from her pulse rifle and they shrieked and slowed down a little, but it didn't stop them. Glancing down at the floor, the Doctor could also make out the shapes of several xenomorph eggs beginning to hatch and facehuggers crawling out. "Don't let those things get near you!" he shouted as they turned and ran.

"Don't intend to!" Ellis shouted back, frying several eggs with a stream of flame.

"We need to get to another quarter! This way!" Tevo yelled as she set off down another resin coated corridor, the other three close behind her.

Half way down the corridor Adrick turned and fired three plasma balls at the xenomorphs from an ion gun the Doctor hadn't even realised he'd been carrying. Two of the plasma balls were on target, and two xenomorphs were knocked back into the others as they caught fire. For once, the Doctor thought he was rather glad these pirates were armed with guns.

Despite being slowed down somewhat, a swarm of xenomorphs quickly replaced the two that had fallen and began to make up the distance. The Doctor saw Ellis glance at Adrick as if to ask him to do it again, but Adrick yelled, "I'm out of charge!"

The xenomorphs were gaining on them, and the Doctor realised that if they didn't reach a point of safety soon the xenomorphs were going to catch them up…and then they'd all suffer the same fate as Murray. Just as he was beginning to wonder how much longer they could run for he noticed something in the wall that hadn't quite been covered up by the resin. It looked like an electronic control point, and behind it he could just about make out the shape of what appeared to be a yellow triangle. If that meant what he thought it meant, then they were about to leave this quarter.

Tevo was the one furthest ahead and the Doctor watched as she ran underneath an indent in the ceiling. She was followed milliseconds after by Ellis and Adrick, and then it was the Doctor's turn. As he passed through he glanced up and thought he could make out the pattern of repeating circles on the ceiling underneath the resin. That had better be what he thought it was.

Without pausing to think about it any further, knowing he didn't have much time, the Doctor suddenly stopped running and turned in the corridor to face the xenomorphs. Tevo had turned to glance back briefly, and as she saw what he was doing she screamed out his name. "Doctor!"

He didn't have time to acknowledge her. Instead, he took out his sonic screwdriver and sent a sonic wave at the ceiling in front of him just as the xenomorphs were about to reach him. Tevo screamed again as the xenomorph furthest ahead launched itself at the Doctor and extended its inner set of jaws with a vicious shriek, but then it suddenly found itself hurled back and a crackle of purple light shot across the corridor. Several more xenomorphs slammed into the shield and shrieked as the electric charge fried their nerve endings. The swarm kept coming, but they weren't getting through.

The Doctor turned to look at Tevo and the others, who had stopped running and were now watching him with expressions that were both relieved and stunned. He grinned at them. "You know what I said about this ship not being very impressive? I take it back."

He looked to each of them once before his gaze rested on Tevo, who gave him a relieved smile, but then her expression turned to one of horror again as she screamed. "Doctor, behind you!"

He heard the sound of movement behind him and whipped round quickly to see what it was, but barely had time to register a vague eight-legged outline before the world went black.


	6. Yautja

" _What was that thing? Do you think…that's how Murray…?"_

" _Don't think about it, Adrick."_

" _Is it going to happen to him too?"_

" _It had better not. We need him to get out of here."_

The voices were strangely muffled, as if coming through a thick haze of fog that damped sonic vibrations. He still wasn't able to see anything clearly, although there was a dull red light filtering through his eyelids. Sensation was slowly returning, and he found he was able to breathe freely even though his throat was burning. He tried to open his eyes and sit up, but he was still disorientated and his attempts at movement were slow and clumsy.

" _Captain, I think he's waking up."_

That definitely sounded clearer, as if it was right next to him.

He finally opened his eyes and as his surroundings came into focus he could make out three faces that he momentarily didn't recognise. But then he remembered everything that had happened and suddenly sat bolt upright, completely alert. Tevo crossed to him and put a hand on his shoulder, her expression managing to be both authoritative and concerned. "Slow down," she said firmly, "You were out for over an hour."

He glanced around the room before turning his head to look at her. "Captain, where are we?" he said with a strong sense of urgency in his voice.

"Front portside quarter, top deck," she answered, still looking at him with concern, "The power to this quarter's still online. They can't get in for now, but the moment we open the exit hatch to leave the ship the shields will shut down."

He nodded. "Right, well, we should get going _now,_ " he said, trying to stand up but immediately collapsing again. She quickly put an arm round him to help him stand and he gave her a nod of thanks. He was breathing heavily, trying to gulp down air to alleviate the tight sensation in his chest, but he knew it wouldn't do much good to stave off what was going to happen to him.

"Doctor?" Tevo said, "What…what exactly was that thing?"

He didn't answer her straight away, but instead studied her expression carefully before then looking at Ellis and Adrick, who were both watching him with nervous expressions. He knew that lying to them to keep them calm wouldn't work. "That was phase one of the xenomorph reproduction process."

Tevo's look of apprehension turned to one of horror as she began to realise what that meant. "So…that was how that thing got inside Murray? Does that mean…?" she seemed reluctant to finish that sentence, but he knew what she was going to say.

He nodded at her grimly. "Yes, that means there's one inside me. But there's still time - the larva's still maturing. If we can get back to my ship in time I should be able to stop it reaching full maturity."

"How much time?" She sounded scared, and he didn't think the answer he was about to give her would help.

"I don't know for sure. It depends on the quality of the egg, the oxygen saturation of the environment, the age and species of the host…"

"So what's the average time for a human in his mid-thirties?" she asked, sounding like she didn't want to know.

"Well, I'm not a…" he began, but as his senses continued to sharpen he realised there was a strange stinging sensation just underneath his left ear. He frowned and put a hand up to the left hand side of his face to try and work out what it was.

"Oh," Tevo said, looking apologetic, "We, uh, we tried to cut it off you, but it started bleeding acid so we stopped."

He took his hand away from the burn and looked at her. "Yes, they do that. Where is it now?"

She pointed to a corner of the room where there was a charred black spidery-looking thing curled up on the floor. "Ellis fried it, just to make sure."

The Doctor nodded, "Yes, that would do it." He took a few steps forward, steadier on his feet now, and then glanced round the rectangular room to look at the hatch door with the exit symbol painted on the inside which he began to walk towards. "We should get moving."

Tevo picked up her pulse rifle from the floor and began to follow him towards the hatch. "Yes, we should. Let's go."

Adrick began to follow her but Ellis hung back. "Wait," he said, just as Tevo was preparing to deactivate the lock on the hatch. "What if that thing suddenly bursts out of him while we're out there in the middle of the forest? We don't know where his ship is. We don't even know what it looks like. What would we do then?"

Adrick glanced at Tevo, who in turn looked at the Doctor, realising Ellis had a point. The Doctor looked at Ellis. "It won't come to that."

"What if it does?"

The Doctor reached into the inside of his jacket and rummaged around for a few moments before finding what he was looking for. He pulled out a small silver key which he handed to Tevo. "My ship is called the Tardis. It's about three kilometres away from the _Revenant_ 's portside thrusters and it's shaped like a blue box. If anything happens, get to it and wait inside. You won't be able to fly it without me, but you'll be safer waiting for help in there rather than here."

Tevo looked at him. "But, nothing's going to happen to you, right? You're going to be able to fly it and get us out of here?"

He met her gaze and tried to sound as reassuring as possible. "No, nothing's going to happen to me as long as we're fast. Now, Captain, are you ready to go?"

She cast quick glances at Ellis and Adrick for confirmation and then turned back to him and nodded. "We're ready." She punched in the deactivation code on the control pad and the hatch opened, letting out a hiss as the pressure on the hydraulics decreased.

From somewhere deep inside the _Revenant_ there came the distant shrieks of xenomorphs as they finally broke through where the shields had been.

"Right, let's move," the Doctor said, ushering the three pirates out of the hatch. On the outside of the ship Tevo quickly turned to reclose the hatch, hoping that would keep the xenomorphs contained. It was nighttime, and the only light was coming from the planet's three moons and the sprinkling of stars in the sky. It was just enough for them to make out the ground several metres below where they were balancing on the side of the ship, and they realised they were going to have to climb down the metal framework to reach the floor. Adrick went first, and then helped Ellis down after him who in turn helped Tevo and the Doctor. From far above them they could hear the sound of xenomorphs moving inside the ship trying to get out.

Once they'd reached the ground the Doctor quickly glanced round to get his bearings and then pointed in a direction leading off into the trees. The pirates began to follow him as he started to run, but then he stopped and looked uncertain. "Wait." He took out his sonic screwdriver and scanned the area around him, and then seemed to change his mind and began to head off in another direction. "No, this way!"

"Are you sure?" Adrick shouted as they ran after him.

"No," came the reply shouted back. "Everything in this forest looks the same. I'm trying to follow the echo of your distress signal from the Tardis' receivers."

That didn't exactly reassure the three space pirates. "Doctor, what if we _are_ going the wrong way?" Ellis said.

"Don't worry we'll find it."

"Not the most convincing thing I've heard," Tevo commented, but the shrieks of the xenomorphs were reassuringly getting quieter and quieter behind them.

The Doctor glanced back at them and then back up ahead. "Ah, a clearing!" he shouted, seeing a break in the trees, "I came through a clearing on my way here. It's this way."

The three of them ran after him towards the moonlight filtering down through the break in the canopy, but as they reached the clearing all four of them stopped. Despite knowing they had to keep moving, they were all too stunned by what they saw to just simply run past it.

"Well, I definitely didn't pass this on my way in," the Doctor said, "Perhaps this _was_ the wrong way."

The four of them looked up at the strange metal tower in front of them. It looked like a very tall, think electrical pylon, and attached to the top of it some twenty feet above the ground were several antennae and a large satellite dish. The Doctor took a few steps closer to it and held out his sonic screwdriver to scan it. "It's an electromagnetic signal generator," he said, "Transmitting static that's been fed through an amplifier on a feedback loop. The beam it's transmitting is so concentrated it's enough to generate an electromagnetic storm way out into space." He turned to glance back at the others. "You never did tell me," he said, "What caused the _Revenant_ to crash land? Not a sudden failure of all the electronics on board, by any chance?"

Tevo met his gaze and nodded, a look of realisation spread across her face. "We were only a couple of kilometres above the atmosphere. All the systems suddenly went down and none of the controls would work. We had no idea what caused it. There was barely any chance to do anything before we started falling towards the planet." As she looked up at the top of the tower and then back at the Doctor. "You're not telling me the xenomorphs are capable of building something like that?"

He shook his head, "No, I was wrong," he said thoughtfully, "This isn't their natural planet, it's something else. But what, though? And who brought them here?" He was wrapped up in his own thoughts, trying to work it out, but was jerked out of them by the sound of Ellis shouting his name.

"Doctor!"

He looked over to where Ellis was now standing on the far side of the clearing. Adrick and Tevo looked too and he thought he heard Tevo give a slight gasp.

"What was that you were saying earlier about them never having encountered humans before?" Ellis said, gesturing at the row of semi-rotten human corpses lying just next to the tree line, each with a huge hole in their chests from where something had burst outwards.

Finally working it out in his mind, the Doctor looked at the bodies with a growing sense of horror. "It's the yautja," he said, and the three pirates just looked at him in nervous bewilderment. "This isn't a planet, it's a game reserve. They're using humans to breed prey. Well, not just humans, any living creatures they can get their hands on if they can get them to crash land here."

"Doctor, I have no idea what you're talking about but I don't like the sound of it," Adrick said.

The Doctor looked at him then back to the others. "We have to get out of here as soon as possible," he said, "And report this back to the galactic adjudicators. What they're doing _definitely_ isn't legal."

"Honestly, Doctor, I don't care about reporting it," Tevo said, "I'd just like to survive it. Now, do you know which is the right way yet?"

He took out his sonic screwdriver and scanned the area again, but gave a look of frustration when it clearly wasn't working. "The signal from this thing is interfering with the feedback on the sonic. And the sun's not even up to use as a reference point. If I tried telling you where to go now we'd probably only end up getting even more lost, but I really don't think we can wait til morning."

He was getting more and more frustrated with this dilemma, as were the others, and Ellis let out a growl and threw up his flamethrower in a sign of frustration. "Doctor, what…?" he began to say, and the Doctor stopped fiddling with the screwdriver to look at him. He was about to finish his sentence, but the Doctor was first to notice the three pinpoints of red light that had just appeared on his forehead.

"Ellis, get down!" he shouted.

But it was too late. The look of fear barely had time to register on Ellis's face before his head evaporated in a plume of red mist.

Neither Adrick or Tevo screamed but they both simultaneously let out expletives. " _Fuck_!"

"Run!" The Doctor yelled.


	7. Running Again

As they began to run there was a small explosion as a tree was hit with another burst of plasma just behind where Adrick had been standing. They ran out of the clearing back into the trees, but the darkness and thick foliage did nothing to throw off whatever it was that was firing at them. There were several flashes of light as jets of plasma kept colliding with the shrubbery, narrowly missing them on several occasions. Adrick had his ion gun in hand and kept glancing back over his shoulder to see where the next shot might come from, but he wasn't able to work it out. "Doctor, what is it? I can't see it!"

"That's because it's invisible!" the Doctor shouted back.

"What?" both Adrick and Tevo yelled in disbelief.

"Just keep running!" the Doctor shouted again. "Don't stop until I tell you it's safe to." He still had his sonic screwdriver out and kept pointing it behind him and activating it, but the little flashing blue light didn't seem to be doing anything. A burst of plasma exploded on the ground at Tevo's feet and she gave a yell as she was knocked over and rolled down a slope in the uneven ground, dropping her pulse rifle. She quickly scrambled to her feet to go and retrieve the weapon, but she couldn't see where it had fallen. Panicked, she glanced around her to try and make out whatever it was that was chasing them and she thought she saw a ripple of movement through the trees. She took a step backwards and squinted a little to try and make out what it was, but there didn't seem to be anything there. She was about to turn and run again but then she saw the same kind of distorted blur, as if the background itself was moving, and she realised that whatever it was only a few feet in front of her. She froze, realising that running would do her no good now. In just a few seconds she was going to meet the same fate as Ellis, she felt sure of it, but then she heard the Doctor shout "Got you!" and there came the noise from the sonic screwdriver. From nowhere a ripple of light appeared in front of her, which then faded to leave behind a large, humanoid form. It was at least seven foot in height, with thick muscles that showed through the mesh bodysuit it was wearing, and long dreadlocks that framed a sinister looking metal mask. It was heavily armed with some kind of gun mounted on its shoulder, a spear-like device slung over its back and various bladed items attached to its belt. It also wore an armour plate across its left shoulder and had more armour covering its thighs and groin, as well as wrist bracers from which two long serrated blades protruded. Tevo immediately took another step back as she realised it had one arm raised as if to bring down the blades slashing down onto her, but it never completed the movement. Instead, it lowered its arm and looked down at the device on its left wrist, as if checking a watch. It cocked its head to the side slightly, and, if anything, Tevo thought it seemed confused. So was she, for that matter.

She heard the Doctor call out to Adrick. "It's okay! You can stop running now."

She glanced nervously over at him. "Doctor…what exactly did you do?" she asked, cautiously stepping away from the creature and looking on the floor for her pulse rifle. She found it several feet away and went to pick it up before moving closer towards the Doctor, who was still holding the sonic screwdriver pointed at the alien.

"I've scrambled the output on the mask," the Doctor explained. "That's what it uses to see, mostly, but it currently can't see or hear anything except static. Will only work while I've got the screwdriver pointed at it, but if I can confuse it enough I think it'll give us a pretty decent head start before it works out which way we've gone. Now, I think I may know where the Tardis is. From the best I can work out it's over in that direction," he said, pointing with his free hand. "I think it's probably okay for us to start running again if we want to get there as soon as possible."

Adrick took a few steps past him in the direction he was pointing. "Good idea," he said, and the three of them began to head in that direction as the Doctor backed away from the alien with his sonic screwdriver still raised. They'd only gone a few paces before a low hissing noise sounded in front of them and the silhouette of a xenomorph appeared through the trees. They stopped advancing and Adrick raised his ion gun to fire a plasma burst at it, but that only prompted the sound of several more shrieks further into the forest as three more xenomorphs appeared to replace it.

"Ah," said the Doctor, "Maybe not this way then."

They turned and began to run again in the opposite direction. Tevo glanced behind her, this time feeling certain she was going to die. Now that the sonic was off it that thing was going to start chasing them again, in addition to the three xenomorphs, and she just didn't see how any of them were going to get out alive. They'd been lucky to survive this long, but she knew it wasn't going to last. Even though she didn't want to give up, she had to be realistic. Carter and Verren and Murray and Ellis were all gone: it would be their turn next.

She heard a xenomorph shriek off to her left she glanced round just in time to see it launch itself at her. She brought up the pulse rifle to fire a few rounds at it, but it didn't seem to do any good and the thing kept coming towards her. She just had time to screw her eyes shut and brace herself for the pain that was going to come, but there didn't seem to be any. All that happened was she saw a burst of light penetrate through her eyelids and she opened them again to see the grotesque shape of the xenomorph fly through the air and collide with some trees as it was hit by a jet of plasma. She looked round to thank Adrick for taking it out with his ion gun, but he was several metres in front of her. Glancing back and off to her right, it was with a strange sense of disbelief that she realised the plasma had come from that other alien creature. What was going on?

"Captain!"

She heard the Doctor shouting her and looking up ahead she saw he was several metres away waiting for her to catch up. He grabbed her arm as she finally reached him and pulled her along next to him. "Come on, Adrick's found something up ahead," he said, pointing to where Adrick was silhouetted against light coming from the point at which the treeline suddenly stopped.

The pirate turned to glance back at them and pointed in front of him down a slope. "There's some kind of complex down there," he shouted back to them, "I'm not sure what it is but if we can get inside we might be…"

He was cut off mid-sentence as a xenomorph appeared from the trees off to his left and pounced on him, dragging him to the ground. Adrick screamed, but the sound was abruptly cut short as the xenomorph extended its second set of jaws and punched a hole through his skull.

"Adrick!" Tevo yelled. The Doctor grabbed her arm and tried to pull her away, but she'd already brought up the pulse rifle and was firing several rounds of lead into the xenomorph. It shrieked and turned its attention on her as acidic blood sprayed everywhere, but Tevo didn't let up. She continued to fire at it until it finally collapsed dead on the floor, and even then she didn't want to stop. The Doctor tried to pull her away, but she continued to fire until the entire magazine had been emptied, after which she simply stood there staring at it, breathing heavily. The Doctor grabbed her shoulders and forced her to look at him. He noticed her cheeks were stained with tears. "Captain Tevo. Ailyn. Ailyn, look at me. I am sorry about Adrick. I'm sorry about what happened to Ellis, and Murray, and the others, but we can't do anything for them now. If we want to survive we have to keep moving." She looked up at him as if not quite hearing him.

He glanced back into the forest at where the yautja was fighting the one remaining xenomorph, and then looked down the slope at the strange complex of buildings and structures that Adrick had discovered. "Come on," he said, grabbing Tevo's hand. "We should head down there. It's probably our best chance of surviving the night."

It took her a moment to respond, but then she gave him a small nod and the two of them turned and began to head down the slope.


	8. Challenge Accepted

As they reached the maze of metal buildings at the foot of the slope they glanced back behind them and were grateful to see that neither the yautja nor any xenomorphs had reached the top of the ridge. The Doctor took out his sonic screwdriver and started scanning the buildings to find a way in. He found a door and used the sonic to unlock it, while Tevo stood beside him still staring up at the top of the slope. Just as the Doctor pushed the door open Tevo thought she saw a shape appear at the top of the ridge, but then the Doctor grabbed her arm and pulled her inside before she had chance to look properly and closed the door behind them.

"Doctor, I…I think I saw something up there," she said as she watched him lock the door again with the screwdriver.

He looked at her. "We'll be alright in here, I don't think it'll find us."

She gave him a look that suggested she wasn't convinced.

He tried to give her a reassuring smile. "It probably didn't get chance to see us. Come on, let's go look around and see what exactly this place is."

She still looked worried. "If there's more of those things around I'd rather not."

"We might find something useful," he said to try and convince her. "The yautja are a hunter species, and this looks like something they may have set up to use as a base during the hunting season. If they use this planet to initiate young bloods they might have weapons and armour stored here, or maybe they use it control what arrives at and leaves the planet. They're using that radio tower to make ships crash land, but they must be able to turn it off if any of their own ships ever come here. They must be importing the xenomorph eggs, unless…" He trailed off as something occurred to him and a thoughtful expression settled on his face.

"Unless what?" Tevo prompted.

"Unless they've already got a queen permanently in place on the planet."

Her eyes widened slightly. "A _queen_? You mean a xenomorph queen? That sounds bad."

He nodded. "Rather bad for any other species nearby. A queen's what lays those eggs the facehuggers hatch from. The yautja capture them in order to provide prey for future hunts, and if this planet really is infested with xenomorphs then there's probably a queen around somewhere to provide the eggs."

"You mean there's probably a super-version of those xenomorph things somewhere in this building right now? And you think we'll be safer in here than we are out there?"

After she'd said those words the expression on his face darkened somewhat. "If there is one somewhere in here it's probably kept locked up in chains. The yautja don't really care about how they treat the creatures they hunt. If they did they wouldn't hunt them."

Tevo gave him another disbelieving look. "Are you seriously sympathising with xenomorphs? Doctor, I really struggle to understand you some…well, practically _all_ the time."

"I'm not saying I _like_ xenomorphs," he said in response, "Actually, I think they're probably one of the most horrible species that ever evolved, but that doesn't mean they deserve what the yautja do to them. Killing them in defence is one thing, but breeding them for the sole purpose of killing them is something else entirely."

She didn't say anything in response to that, but the expression on her face clearly showed she disagreed with him.

They set off walking together through the metal building. The corridor they found themselves on was dimly lit with yellow fluorescent lights at regular intervals in the walls, and they could make out where the corridor terminated in a circular steel door about thirty metres in front of them. When they reached it the Doctor took out his sonic screwdriver and prepared to open it, but Tevo grabbed his arm to stop him. "Are you sure that's a good idea? I mean, we don't even know what's on the other side."

"Well, let's open it and find out," he said, switching the sonic screwdriver to his other hand and activating it before she had chance to do anything more to stop him. The steel door slid upwards into the ceiling to reveal the room on the other side, and Tevo brought up her pulse rifle just in case there were any xenos or yautja waiting for them. Seeing there wasn't, she let out a sigh and lowered it again.

"Just as well there was nothing there," she said. "I'm out of ammo anyway. What would you have done if there _had_ been something there?"

"Well, I had a feeling there wouldn't be," he said as they stepped into the room and the door closed behind them. "It wouldn't have made sense. This place is clearly designed to be secure against xenomorphs, and if there's more than one yautja here for a hunt then they're probably outside with the last one we saw."

Tevo looked at him curiously. "How exactly is it you know so much about xenomorphs and yautja, as you keep calling them?"

"Like I said, I know a lot of stuff."

"Yes, but how?"

"Well…" he began and Tevo thought she might get an explanation, but then he quickly changed the subject as he looked around the room they were standing in. "Is this an armoury? It is, isn't it?"

Tevo wanted an answer but she decided to let it drop. If this was an armoury then that would be more useful to them right now. She looked round at the various items on the walls and thought that they did indeed look like weapons, although not any that she recognised. "Looks like it," Tevo said before walking over to a row of what looked like some kind of handheld plasma guns hung up on the wall.

She was reaching out and was about to pick one up when she heard the Doctor say, "Wait!"

She turned to look at him. "You're not seriously saying we shouldn't shoot those things?"

"No," he answered, "Well, yes but no. We'll probably have no choice but to shoot the xenomorphs, although picking a fight with a yautja is never a good idea. Anyway, that isn't why I stopped you," he said, walking over to where she was standing by the guns and taking out his sonic screwdriver.

"Then why?"

"There's sensors fitted into the holders," he said as he scanned the weapons with the screwdriver, "Keeps a log of what's in and out at any one time. If you take that out of there they'll know about it."

"How does that work?" she asked, frustrated that they were standing in a room full of weapons and couldn't use any of them.

"The masks," he explained, "They've got dozens of weapons to choose from so they don't take all of them out on a hunt at the same time. They usually synchronise firearms with their masks which they use to control them. Whichever yautja owns that gun will know when it's been taken out of the armoury and when it's in use. There's three empty holders at the moment, which means that there's at least three yautja out there who've decided they want to use this kind of gun. The only weapons they won't be able to keep track of are the low-tech ones, like those spears over there," he said, pointing towards a rack of metal spears and beginning to walk over to it.

Tevo followed him, still carrying her empty pulse rifle. "So the only weapons we can take out of here without attracting their attention would be a few knives and some sticks with a pointy thing on the end? Not exactly useful, is it?"

"I don't know, it depends how you use them," he said casually, picking up one of the spears and examining it.

Tevo gave a frustrated sigh and looked round to see if she could spot any useful kind of weapon in the room, but then another thought occurred to her. "What exactly do you mean they use their masks to control their firearms? Do they pull the trigger with their tongues or something?"

"Mandibles," he said, turning the spear over to get a better look at the barbed metal shapes fitted to the tip.

"What, mandibles?" Tevo said in a tone of incredulity, "Like those things ants have?"

"Sort of like that, yeah." He looked at her and couldn't help but chuckle slightly at her disgusted expression. "You know, they probably think you look very weird too."

Tevo just shook her head. "Or maybe they _know_ they're the ones who look weird. That's why they wear the masks."

He gave her a grin once she'd said that. "You know, I've never considered that, but I suppose it's possible." He didn't give her chance to say anything else before he'd put the spear back on its rack and said dismissively, "No, you're right. That's going to be completely useless. Let's see what else there is in here."

He began to walk quickly towards the other end of the room where there was another circular door with an LCD screen next to it, and Tevo followed behind him. "Excellent, they have a computer!" he said, looking at the screen, "That's good, that means…" he suddenly broke off mid-sentence and gave a gasp, hunching over slightly and putting a hand to his chest.

"Doctor!" Tevo said, running the next couple of paces to catch up with him. She put a hand on his shoulder and looked at him with concern, trying to keep calm but all the while terrified a miniature xenomorph was going to burst out of him at any moment.

He sucked in a breath through gritted teeth and then exhaled slowly. "It's alright," he said after a couple of seconds, "False alarm, I think. It just means we've got less time than I thought." He straightened up and turned to look at her, and seeing the worried expression on her face he put on a smile. "Anyway, what was I saying? Ah yes, computers. If they have a computer that means I can use the sonic to hack into the mainframe controls and change the transmission on the radio tower so that it stops transmitting an electromagnetic storm and instead turns into a radar system I can use to pinpoint the location of the Tardis," he said in one long breath, before dashing off to start messing around with the screwdriver on the computer.

Tevo watched him, not convinced by the act he was putting on. He had to be just as scared as she was.

She didn't say anything, just watched as the screen flickered with static and then started displaying symbols she didn't recognise.

"Come on, not like that," the Doctor said to the computer, moving the screwdriver across the screen, "I meant that one. Yes, that's it change it to that, and reverse the polarity on that one, and… _voila!_ " He stepped away from the screen, grinning, and pointed for Tevo to look. All she could see was a black screen with orange hexagons on it, some of them lit up and others with slightly thicker edges than the rest.

"What is it?" she asked, confused.

"It's a map of the surrounding area. You see those hexagons there?" he said, pointing to a large cluster of orange in the bottom right hand corner of the screen, "That's the _Revenant_. And this…" he said, waving the screwdriver over the screen so that the entire display shifted downwards to reveal a single illuminated hexagon in the top left of the screen. "This is the Tardis. The radio tower's now transmitting a low frequency radar pulse and I can pick up the feedback from the Tardis on the sonic. She's only a couple of kilometres away. If we can get out of here we'll probably reach her in ten minutes, provided we don't run into any xenomorphs."

"And what if we do run into any xenomorphs?" Tevo asked, feeling relieved that they'd at last managed to locate his ship but still reluctant to let herself get too hopeful.

"Well, I'm sure there's _some_ stuff we could take from round here. We'll have to improvise," he said, and started to look at an array of small metal discs that were laid out on a table by the door. "See, I don't really know what these do, but they might be useful," he said, shoving about eight of them into his pockets.

Tevo started to look round as well for something she could take, but then stopped as she thought she heard a beeping noise. "Doctor," she said, as she followed the sound back to the rack of spears. She noticed that on one of them there seemed to be a small LCD display on the side, which was now lit up and displaying several strange red glyphs. Tevo thought she didn't recognise them, but oddly the longer she looked at them the more she thought she could make sense of them. It said…'activate?'

She turned to look at the Doctor in confusion, and he gave her a slightly worried look back. "Ah," he said, "Looks like those spears weren't as low tech as I thought."

"But what…" she began, but he quickly put a finger to his lips to silence her and made a 'shh' noise for her to be quiet. She shut up and tried to listen for whatever it was he must have heard. At first all she could hear was the beeping from the spear, but then there came the sound of footsteps – several of them, and they were coming from the other side of the door.

"Ailyn, drop the gun," the Doctor suddenly said urgently.

"What? Why?" she asked in confusion.

"You're out of ammo anyway, just do it," he said in an 'I'll explain later but right now you have to listen to me' sort of voice.

She did as she was told and tossed the rifle aside just as the door on the far side of the room opened. Instinctively she took a couple of steps back as the heavily armoured forms of seven yautja entered the room, but seeing the Doctor was holding his ground she stopped retreating and did the same.

The yautja advanced forward several paces and then stopped just a couple of yards in front of the Doctor.

There were a few seconds of confrontational silence between them, which was then broken by the Doctor. "I take it you're the yautja who've been bringing the xenomorphs here to hunt," he said, sounding confident and not at all afraid. Tevo was impressed how he could stand there and be so fearless when all she wanted to do was run back in the direction they'd come from.

There was a strange clicking sound from behind the mask of one of the yautja who took a step forward to stand in front of the others, but there didn't seem to be any more of a response from them.

"We aren't armed: you can't kill us yet," the Doctor said, still sounding confident. "That would go against your codes of honour. So before you do anything else, tell me if I'm right: are you the ones who've been bringing the xenomorphs here?"

There was a moment's silence, and then the yautja who had stepped forward spoke, the voice sounding strangely mechanical from behind the mask. "We bring a lot of creatures here to hunt, ooman, and you are one of them."

"Yes, I'd gathered that," the Doctor said, his tone angry. "Your species always did think it was above the law. The Shadow Proclamation permits you to hunt xenomorphs but you are _in no way_ entitled to cause other ships to crash land here just so you can use other species to breed prey."

"Our species is older than any of your laws, ooman, and we will not be dictated to by weaker species who wish to deprive us of our traditions and our honour."

"Honour?" the Doctor said scornfully, "There's no honour in what you've been doing. You've brought species here that aren't just considered game or vermin like the xenomorphs. They're intelligent beings, like you, and you somehow think you have a right to hunt them."

Tevo was struggling to understand any of what was going on; how the Doctor was familiar with these creatures, what they were talking about or how they were speaking English at all, but she thought it was best just to let the Doctor get on with it. He seemed to know what he was doing and she thought she trusted him.

The yautja made that clicking sound again. "You're wrong, ooman. Your species are game, just like the _kainde amedha_. We will hunt you, or you will be used as hosts..." Again there came the clicking sound and the yautja cocked its head. "Ah, I see one of you already is a host. The other one shortly will be."

Tevo saw them all turn their heads slightly to look at her and she took a step closer to the Doctor. "Doctor, what…how can they know that?" she whispered to him.

"It's the masks," he said quietly to her. "They can use them to do bioscans." She still looked terrified and he tried to give her a reassuring look. "It'll be alright. Trust me."

As she looked at him she wanted to say, "I do trust you," but then another one of the yautja spoke.

"Setg'inte, the larger one registers as having two cardiac organs. It isn't ooman."

Tevo looked at the Doctor in utter confusion but he turned his attention back to the yautja. "That's right. I'm not 'ooman'."

The yautja whose named appeared to be Setg'inte spoke again. "You're right, Guan'dlak. Most interesting." Even with the mask on he seemed to be staring at the Doctor intently. "What species are you?"

The Doctor continued to glare at them defiantly. "Oh come on, your race is almost as old as mine. I'm sure you can remember if you think about it long enough."

There was the clicking sound again, although this time it seemed to be coming from all of them. Setg'inte took a step closer towards the Doctor and Tevo instinctively backed off, but the Doctor didn't move. "Don't test my patience. Answer me," the yautja demanded.

"Just keep thinking about it, I'm sure it'll come to you," the Doctor said, and Tevo wasn't sure if he was being immensely brave or immensely stupid.

There were a few moments silence in which the Doctor stared up into the eye pieces of the mask towering above him, but then the yautja spoke. "Impossible."

"Is it?"

"But your kind are all extinct."

"I'm the last."

This was doing nothing to help Tevo's confusion, but she was more worried about the sinister laugh the yautja gave rather than finding out what they were on about.

Setg'inte turned to face the other yautja. "We have here the very last of a species," he said, pointing at the Doctor before turning to face him again. "And I must say, it truly will be an honour to hunt you, Time Lord."

The Doctor shook his head. "Oh no, I don't think so, Setg'inte," he said. "If you choose to hunt me you'll be making the biggest mistake of your life."

The yautja cocked his head and spoke again, his tone menacing. "Is that a challenge?"

The Doctor glared back. He wasn't going to let them get away with what they'd been doing. "Yes, it is."

Setg'inte didn't say anything in response, but the Doctor saw the plasma cannon mounted on the yautja's left shoulder pivot slightly to point at him. Looking down, he saw three red dots of light had appeared on his chest in a triangular formation, and moments later three other dot formations appeared too. Glancing across at Tevo he saw three other targeting systems had locked onto her as well, and she was looking at him with an absolutely terrified expression.

He turned his gaze back to Setg'inte, and it seemed as if the yautja was laughing at him even from behind the mask.

The mechanical voice spoke out again. "Challenge accepted."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A couple of notes about the yautja names: they're corrupted forms of yautja words from the comic books. 'Setg'inte' means something along the lines of 'lethal one' while 'Guan'dlak' roughly translates as 'nightmare'.


	9. A New Prey To Hunt

The cannons fired.

There was the sound of something exploding as the plasma bursts hit the ceiling, frying the circuitry contained in the cavity between the metal tiles and the roof. Sparks flew as several of the overhead wires snapped and fell down to dangle over the room as the ceiling caught fire. The room was plunged into darkness as the fluorescent lights suddenly went out, leaving the only light to see by coming from the inferno overhead. The Doctor glanced over at Tevo who seemed to be in shock, standing with a dazed look on her face and seemingly astounded that she was still alive.

They had to get moving. The burst of heat wouldn't blind the yautja for long. "Ailyn, come on, let's go!" he said, grabbing her arm and pulling her back in the direction of the door they'd entered through. As they began to run she seemed to snap out of her trance and looked around her, trying to process what had just happened.

"Doctor, what did you do?" she shouted at him as they ran.

"Decalibrated their targeting systems with their shoulder cannons," he answered, holding up the hand in which he was still holding the sonic screwdriver. "They thought they were aiming at us but actually they were aiming at the ceiling."

There was another explosion as another burst of plasma hit the ceiling and one of the metal joists holding it up collapsed and fell to the floor a split second after they'd run underneath it. The Doctor turned to Tevo and grinned. "See! Still not aiming at us," he said as he held out the sonic screwdriver to open the door they'd come in through. They ran through it and as it closed behind them there was the sound of a burst of plasma hitting the other side. "They've probably worked out what's wrong by now, but it'll take them a few minutes to recalibrate," the Doctor said as they reached the outside door and he opened it to let them out. "Gives us time to get away." He held up the sonic screwdriver and scanned the air in front of him, before pointing to the right. "Tardis is that way," he said, and the pair of them began to set off running again.

-oOo-

As Setg'inte fired his plasma caster a blinding flash of white suddenly illuminated his thermal contrast vision. There was the sound of an explosion above him and he tilted his head to try and work out what it was, but all he could see was a haze of orange, yellow and white. He cycled through the filters on his mask to try and get a better visual, and once he'd reached the x-ray spectrum he saw how the structure of the ceiling had been damaged. Somehow the yautja had managed to fire upwards at the ceiling rather than at their prey.

Realising the Time Lord must have done something, Setg'inte looked down again and saw the figures of the ooman and the Time Lord running towards the exit. He aimed his plasma caster at them and fired again, but the plasma burst collided with the ceiling and brought down one of the metal joists holding it up. Behind his mask Setg'inte snarled. The Time Lord had done something to their weapons. They couldn't aim properly, but they could still fire.

Watching as the Time Lord somehow opened the door to the exit, Setg'inte trained his targeting system on the floor just in front of it. He fired again, and this time he knew the shot was going towards his prey, but just before it hit home the metal door separating the room from the corridor slid shut and instead the plasma collided with steel. Setg'inte gave a predatorial growl and began to run forward after them, but another one of the ceiling joists suddenly collapsed and fell down in front of him. He looked up, and realised that the whole structure had become unstable. Glancing back at the other yautja he saw they'd retreated to the other end of the room where the ceiling was still in tact, and he went to join them before the roof had chance to cave in entirely.

Once he'd reached them he turned to survey the destruction in front of him, and couldn't help but feel impressed despite himself. The Time Lord was good. He knew that whichever yautja claimed its skull would truly have something to boast about. He looked at each of the other hunters around him. None of them were as experienced as him: few of them had hunted _pyode amedha_ before, and even then it hadn't been more than two or three times. If any of them had a chance of killing the Time Lord, Setg'inte knew it would be him.

"Well, come on," he said to the others, opening the other door to the room to find an alternative exit. "We have a new prey to hunt."

-oOo-

The Doctor and Tevo were heading back into the forest in the direction they'd come from, and they both knew they would probably encounter more xenomorphs before they reached anywhere near safety. Although Tevo hated to admit it, she was frightened as hell. The Doctor had been nothing short of amazing when it came to keeping them both alive so far, but now she didn't have a weapon and she wasn't sure if those strange disc things the Doctor had picked up would do them any good.

They were several metres back inside the forest when the Doctor stopped running and held up the sonic screwdriver again to work out which direction they should go in next. While he completed the scan Tevo looked around nervously, expecting to see the silhouette of a xenomorph emerge through the trees at any second, but they were lucky and nothing appeared as the Doctor lowered the screwdriver again.

"It's this way," he said, pointing through the trees. "We'll get back to the Tardis first, but then we'll have to do something about the yautja."

Tevo didn't like the sound of that. "How? What exactly do you plan on doing?"

"I don't know yet, but I'll think of something." He began walking quickly in the direction he'd pointed in and Tevo followed him.

"Look," she said in a no-nonsense sort of tone, "It's all very well you saying you'll think of something, but I still don't understand what happened back there. You're a complete stranger to me but I've trusted you with my life so far, so would you mind telling me what the hell is going on?"

"Well, the yautja are an ancient race of hunters. The xenomorphs…" he began to explain, but she interrupted him.

"No, I get that part. Or at least I sort of get that part – the yautja hunt the xenomorphs. What I didn't get was all that about you being a Time Lord. I mean, what is that? Some kind of title? Are you a galactic law maker or something?"

"Not exactly."

"Then what?" she snapped, frustrated by the fact she wasn't getting a straight answer.

He stopped walking and turned round to face her. He didn't say anything for a couple of moments but she watched him expectantly, waiting for him to talk. "Well…" he began, but was interrupted by the sound of something hissing in the trees above them. They both looked up in time to see a xenomorph lower itself down from the branches overhead so that its jaws were just a few inches above Tevo's head. Instinctively she took a step back and wanted to turn and run, but the Doctor shouted out to her, "Don't move."

At the sound of his voice the xenomorph turned its attention to him, dropping down from the trees and rearing up to get a better look at him, but it didn't seem to be attacking. Tevo watched as the Doctor stood completely still with the xenomorph's face just a few inches from his own, but then he looked past it to make eye contact with Tevo and out of the corner of her eye she thought she saw him reach a hand into his pocket.

She wasn't sure what the xenomorph was doing – it hadn't made a move to kill, but instead it seemed as if it was _smelling_ him or something – but then, without warning, it suddenly turned back to Tevo and launched itself at her. She screamed and leapt back, but the Doctor brought up his arm to throw one of the discs at it and there was a sudden flash of light as the projectile made contact. The xenomorph collapsed to the ground and skidded a few feet to come to rest in front of Tevo. She looked down at it, and saw that the disc had buried itself in the creature's elongated skull, which had shrunk to about a third of its original size and seemed strangely shrivelled. Slightly disgusted by the sight of it, she turned to look back up at the Doctor. "So…it exploded?"

"Imploded," he corrected. "Interesting. I hadn't expected it to do that. I suppose it stops it bleeding acid everywhere," he said, looking down at the corpse and then back up at Tevo. "Right, let's keep going before I have to use another one of those." They were about to set off again in the direction of the Tardis, but then there was another hissing sound coming from up ahead through the trees. The Doctor grabbed Tevo's arm to drag her in the opposite direction. "Might have to take the indirect route."

They were beginning to run, but then more hisses sounded in front of them, even closer this time, and as they turned round they saw xenomorphs emerging through the trees behind them too.

Tevo kept her eyes locked on the xenomorphs as she inched closer to the Doctor and further away from the aliens that were closing in on them. "How many more of those things do you have?" she asked him.

"Not enough," he replied grimly.

The xenomorphs quickly encircled them and they found themselves surrounded on all sides. Tevo looked at the Doctor, once again feeling almost certain she would die but still hoping that perhaps he had one more trick up his sleeve. "So, Doctor, what do we do now?"


	10. Fight and Flight

The yautja had found their way out of the compound via a different exit and were now back inside the forest. Much to Setg'inte's dismay the Time Lord and the ooman had already disappeared, and Setg'inte was determined to be the first to find them again. He wanted the Time Lord's skull, and he knew he didn't have much time to claim it. It would only be a few more hours before the serpent larva matured and went into _z'skvy-de_ , and although the results of that would make for a very formidable prey in itself Setg'inte wanted the satisfaction of killing the Time Lord.

The band of yautja had split up into three smaller groups to continue their hunt. A group of two headed north out of the compound, another two south, and the remaining three – including Setg'inte – went east. They had their vision filters set to infrared - not particularly useful when it came to hunting xenomorphs, but if they were hunting the _pyode amedha_ then the Time Lord would register as having a skin temperature just slightly cooler than the ooman.

They were deep in the forest when they heard the sound of the serpents – a great many of them all close together, and Setg'inte knew they wouldn't congregate in such a way unless they had a reason for it. They must have come across the _pyode_ _amedha._ Setg'inte growled. He didn't care what happened to the ooman – if it became a host then it served a useful purpose and if it died then it was no great loss – but he wanted the Time Lord for himself. He barked orders at the other two yautja and they quickly began to run in the direction of the noise.

-oOo-

The xenomorphs were closing in on the Doctor and Tevo, more of them appearing through the trees to encircle them every second. "You had an idea yet?" Tevo said urgently, clearly starting to panic.

"Not one I'm sure will work," the Doctor replied, sounding just slightly calmer, "But it's better than nothing." He took out another of the imploding discs and threw it towards the mass of advancing xenomorphs. It didn't hit any of them, but instead sailed over their heads and buried itself in the trunk of a tree a few metres away. As the disc imploded a large portion of the trunk collapsed in on itself, removing most of the tree's base support. "Duck!" the Doctor yelled as the huge conifer began to topple, colliding with a tree adjacent to it and setting that one off falling too.

Most of the xenomorphs that had been approaching them were now scrambling to get out from under the falling timber, and a few that didn't get out of the way fast enough or were still trying to chase the Doctor and Tevo were crushed under the mass of wood just as their prey escaped. The second tree was beginning to fall down on top of the first one, and the Doctor and Tevo ran forward to reach the other side of the falling tree before it collapsed completely. It came crashing down behind them just as they cleared the range of the falling branches, creating a wall of wood and pine needles several metres high off the forest floor. Most of the xenomorphs were on the other side of the mass of foliage, but it wouldn't provide a barrier to them for long.

An aisle had opened up through the forest where the tree had been, and the Doctor and Tevo quickly began to run again before the xenomorphs had another chance to surround them. "Is this even the right way?" Tevo shouted as she felt another surge of adrenaline.

"No," the Doctor answered, "But it's the only way we _can_ go so let's just see where it leads."

Behind them came more shrieking sounds from the xenomorphs that had clawed their way through the arboreal barrier, followed quickly by the sound of more shrieks from somewhere in front of them. The xenomorphs were everywhere, and they were running out of places to run to. More of the long-headed aliens appeared through the trees just off to their left, and even though they quickly turned to the right they both knew they didn't stand a chance of outrunning the xenomorphs for much longer.

The Doctor put a hand into his pocket and pulled out a handful of the small metal discs which he thrust at Tevo. "Here, you'll probably be needing some of these."

She took them off him as they continued to run side by side. "How many do you have left?"

He didn't get chance to answer before there was the sound of a xenomorph shriek from very close behind them, and as they looked back they saw a xenomorph launch itself at them from only a few feet away. With a yell of panic Tevo dived to the floor off to her left to get away from it, while the Doctor ducked down so that the xenomorph overshot its leap and went over his head to land in front of him. It quickly turned and rounded on him again, and he reached for another disc but it was already practically on top of him. It was close enough for him to see the saliva dripping off of both sets of its razor sharp teeth, and even as his fingers closed round the metal disc in his pocket he knew he wasn't going to get chance to throw it. Even if the xenomorph earlier hadn't attacked him this one definitely seemed to be about to.

Time seemed to have slowed. It was strange for him, to get the sense of everything moving in slow motion. He was a Time Lord, he always knew how everything moved through time: everything relative to everything else, some things moving quickly, other things moving so slowly so that they lasted almost forever…but this was different. This was a sense that maybe he'd finally reached the end, and somehow he was trying to drag out this final moment for as long as possible. A thousand memories were flooding into his head: _Gallifrey, Susan, Tardis, Time War, Koschei, Bad Wolf, Sarah Jane, Daleks, Romana, Rose…_

He didn't know what this kind of death was going to be like, and he was even less sure how – or _if –_ he could regenerate from it. But he was certain that it was coming. Maybe regeneration might somehow be possible, but this was still going to hurt.

The xenomorph snarled and made a move as if it was about to attack, and he flinched away instinctively even though he knew it would do no good. But then suddenly the xenomorph was knocked back as something impacted with the side of its head, and he watched the obscene body crumple to the floor as the head was reduced to the size of a banana. Glancing across to his left he saw Tevo standing with her arm still outstretched from where she'd thrown the disc, and he wanted to grin at her in thanks, but just this once he couldn't manage it.

He watched as she let her arm drop to her side and just for a second they stared at each other in silence as they recovered from the shock of what had just happened, but then the Doctor saw movement behind her and he remembered they weren't out of danger yet.

"Ailyn!" he shouted desperately at her as the xenomorph behind her advanced, and seeing the panic in his face she quickly turned. She had another disc in hand but it was already too late. The Doctor had got up and was running towards her even as the xenomorph knocked her to the ground, and he was preparing to throw another disc at it, still hoping that maybe she'd be alright, but then there was a bright flash of light as a burst of plasma collided with the xenomorph and it was blasted several feet into the air. Glancing quickly behind him the Doctor saw the shape of a yautja emerging from the trees, but he didn't spare it much thought before he'd reached Tevo and was kneeling next to her. There were several cuts on her arms and shoulders from where it had clawed at her, but she was thankfully still alive.

"Ailyn, are you alright?" he said, his voice managing to combine both relief and panic.

She gave a him a breathless nod. "Yeah, it didn't…never had chance to…oh, _fuck…_ " she jabbered as she sat up, looking completely shellshocked. He helped her to her feet.

"Alright, then come on," he said, realising that they didn't have time to stop. Three yautja had appeared and were fighting off the xenomorphs, but they still needed to get away. As they began to run the Doctor glanced over at one of the yautja, recognising Setg'inte's mask, and the yautja turned to look back at him. They seemed to make eye contact for a moment, and then the Doctor saw the shoulder cannon swivelling in his direction and he ducked out of the way as a burst of plasma shot overhead.

He and Tevo were running blind again, not even sure which direction they were going in, but they knew they had to get away from the melee of yautja and xenomorphs behind them. They hadn't gotten far away from the fight before they found themselves running rather steeply downhill and could see a light in the distance through the trees ahead of them.

"That looks like morning," the Doctor said at the sight of daylight, and as Tevo looked up ahead she could see it too.

"Even better, that looks like a clearing," she said. "Isn't your ship in a clearing?"

"Yes, but I really don't think it's this way," he said, reaching to take out his sonic screwdriver, but as they got even closer towards the light he realised he didn't need it to know they were going in the wrong direction. It wasn't a clearing: instead it was a clean break in the line of trees, the forest stopping abruptly as it reached what they could now see was a cliff edge.

"Oh, crap!" Tevo suddenly shouted, trying to slow down but finding it difficult to stop running on the downhill slope without falling over. She grabbed onto the Doctor to try and stop herself, but he was carrying on.

"There's water down there."

"You know what's better? There's dry land up here!"

"There's xenomorphs up here too," he said, still running towards the cliff edge.

She glanced back up the slope and saw the shapes of xenomorphs gaining on them through the trees and flashes from the yautja's plasma cannons in the distance. "Oh crap!" she yelled again. "Now what?"

"Well, given we have a choice between death by xenomorph or death by high ravine with river at bottom, I say we go with the ravine."

He had that huge grin on his face again and she couldn't for the life of her work out why. "Are you bloody serious? We're not…"

She never finished the sentence as they reached the top of the cliff and he grabbed her hand to pull her over the edge with a shout of "Allons-y!" The Doctor seemed to be loving it, relishing the thrilling sensation of being weightless just before they began to fall, whereas beside him Tevo just gave a terrified scream as they plummeted down towards the water below.


	11. Out Of Time

As they hit the water they were immediately pulled under by the current, and Tevo felt the weight of the water forcing her further downwards. She couldn't see anything and didn't know if the Doctor was anywhere nearby or not, but she did know she didn't have much air and had to reach the surface soon. She desperately began to swim upwards, fighting against the water, and just as she thought she couldn't hold her breath any longer she finally broke through the surface, gasping for air. Blinking the water out of her eyes she looked around her, and felt relief wash over her as she saw the Doctor was only a couple of metres away. His saturated hair was falling into his eyes and he still had that massive grin on his face. "Don't tell me that wasn't fun."

She stared at him, spitting out a mouthful of water to respond. "Fun? If plummeting one hundred feet to near-certain death is supposed to be considered fun then pardon me for not enjoying it."

They were both being swept along quickly by the current but were managing to keep their heads above the water, despite having to fight the weight of their waterlogged clothes dragging them down. After everything they'd been through to survive this long they were determined not to let the river get the better of them.

"Well, we're still alive aren't we?" the Doctor said, pushing his soaking wet hair out of his face with his left hand while using the right to continue to tread water.

Tevo glared at him, still angry that he'd forced her into doing that even though she knew they hadn't really had a choice. "How long do you think that's going to last?" she said, watching the riverbank speed past as they were slept along. It seemed a long way away.

"Oh, for a long time yet," he responded optimistically, beginning to swim towards the edge of the river. Tevo started to try and follow him, but she was becoming too tired and with every stroke the bank only seemed to get further away. After all that running and then the fight to stay above the surface of the water she was struggling to find the energy to keep going. The river just seemed too wide. She thought the Doctor must surely be exhausted too, and even though he was making a valiant effort to try and reach the riverbank he wasn't going much faster than she was, unable to fight the currents that kept forcing them back.

They hadn't been swimming for more than a few seconds before they heard the sound of rushing water intensify, and they both turned away from the riverbank to look downstream in the direction they were being swept in. As Tevo saw the point in the river at which the water suddenly turned into fast moving white foam she turned to the Doctor in panic. "You still think this was a good idea?"

He looked at her as if to acknowledge that maybe it wasn't after all. "Grab onto something that floats!" he shouted, splashing around in search of a stray branch or something buoyant that might have been swept downriver.

Tevo looked around too but realised they were the only two things in the river that were larger than pine needles. "The only other thing I can see that floats round here is you!"

"Grab onto me, then," he said, reaching out his hand to her which she grasped onto tightly. "Hold your breath and hope this is over with quickly."

She gripped his hand even tighter, gulping down a deep breath and squeezing her eyes shut as they reached the rapids and were dragged underwater once more.

There was just time for her to hear the sound of the water roaring in her ears before it suddenly became muted as her head was forced under. She felt herself being thrown around violently by the currents, and she wasn't even sure which way was up anymore as the water pummelled into her from all sides. She had a tight grip on the Doctor's hand and she could feel him holding on tightly to her too, but the longer they were underwater the more she felt her grip begin to slacken as she ran out of air. The sound of the water was being drowned out by the blood pounding in her ears and she felt herself beginning to get light headed. _Just hold on a bit longer,_ she told herself, but the rage of the water wasn't letting up and she felt herself losing her grip on the Doctor's hand as the currents tried to pull him away from her. As her grip began to loosen she felt him grasp onto her more tightly, but it wasn't going to be enough. She had her eyes shut but she could begin to see a haze of red behind her eyelids as she ran out of oxygen. She needed to breathe so badly, the pressure in her lungs feeling like they were ready to burst. Her fingers were starting to feel numb, and she desperately tried to force the muscles to keep a firm grip on the Doctor's hand. She couldn't lose him: he was her only hope of getting out of here, but she was finding it so hard to hold on. All she could feel was the force of the water pounding into her and trying to drag her away from her lifeline, and it seemed to working. Her grip on his hand slipped, and as she tried to grab onto him more tightly she felt him be swept away. Now she was on her own, still being tossed around violently by the rapids and terrified that at any moment she was going to collide with some rocks somewhere and it would all be over.

She still couldn't breathe, but _God_ she needed to. Her chest felt ready to explode and her head was pounding from the rush of blood on the inside and the pummelling of the water from the outside. She couldn't hold her breath any longer; she had to release the pressure in her lungs.

As she opened her mouth Tevo felt a momentary sense of release as the pressure in her chest eased, but then water flooded into her mouth and the burning need to empty her lungs returned with even more intensity than before. She was so desperate for air, but there was still no air to breathe and instead she was gulping down water.

She was fighting to remain conscious, knowing that if she blacked out now she'd almost certainly die, but as oxygen deprivation finally took over she gave up her fight against the water and was aware of nothing more.

-oOo-

Tevo coughed and spluttered as she came to, turning over to spit up the water that had flooded her lungs and feeling her face make contact with wet sand. Slowly sitting up, she looked out in front of her to see she was sitting at the crux of a bend in the river, and she realised she'd been washed up on a bank of silt and sand just after the point where rapids ended. It appeared that the heavier things carried by the water were deposited here instead of being carried round when the water made a sharp change of direction.

She gave a slightly hysterical laugh. She was still alive then. It was unbelievable how well her luck seemed to be holding out in the face of so many near death experiences, but then she thought that maybe it wasn't luck. Maybe it was all down to _…Oh God,_ she suddenly thought as she remembered him. _The Doctor, where is he?_

She got to her feet and quickly scanned the shore, her panic only slightly abated when she saw him lying unconscious on his side several metres away. She quickly ran to him and knelt down next to him, turning him onto his back and bending down to check if he was breathing. Her own breath caught in her throat when she realised he wasn't. "Oh no, please don't do this…" she muttered as she pressed her fingers to his throat in search of a pulse. The relief she felt upon finding one was shortlived as she realised the rhythm was wrong – it felt like a frantic double beat instead of a steady thrum. Was that _thing_ inside him stopping his heart beating properly? If she tried CPR or mouth-to-mouth would she only make things worse?

She didn't know. But she did know that she didn't have time to be indecisive. If she did nothing then he was going to die, and if he died then she was _never_ getting off this planet.

Mouth-to-mouth it was then.

She leaned over him, tilting his head back slightly to open his airway. She'd learned how to do this a long time ago, back on Gamma Gemini Three when she'd taken the first aid course as part of her training to become a company pilot. That career plan had never come to fruition, and although she'd found that most of the training scheme had never been much use to her this was one thing she was so grateful she could remember. Even with the xenomorph larva complicating things she knew what she was supposed to do to get him breathing again. Pinch his nose, blow twice into his mouth, check for breath, then go again. She went through the cycle three times, getting more and more desperate every time he didn't respond. "Come on, please. I need you to wake up," she muttered desperately, "I don't want to die here."

She tried again, and when she still got no response she bent down to press an ear to his chest. She wasn't sure what she was expecting to hear, but she listened anyway, hoping for something that she could interpret as a good sign. For a moment she couldn't make out anything: no heartbeat or breath, not anything at all; but then she felt something press against her cheek and she flinched away suddenly as she realised it was the xenomorph larva moving. If that creature inside him was still alive then he _had_ to be too. She moved back to his mouth to try again, but just as she was leaning in she suddenly felt him shudder and he twisted away from her to cough up river water onto the sand.

She let out a huge sigh of relief, only just realising how much she'd been trembling, before placing a hand on his shoulder and looking at him in concern. "Doctor, are you alright?"

He blinked up at her. "Rose?"

"What?" she said in confusion, "No, it's Ailyn Tevo, you idiot. Who the hell's Rose?"

"Huh? Oh, of course…" he mumbled as he began to recover from the near-drowning and started to sit up slowly. She kept her hand on his shoulder, still looking at him with a worried expression. He turned to her and gave her a small smile of relief. "The time limit on my respiratory bypass must have been nearly up. I think that's the third time you've saved my life."

He was saying stuff that made no sense to her again, but she took that as a sign he was back to normal and smiled back. "Yes, I guess it…" she began to say, but then he suddenly let out a scream of pain and collapsed back onto the sand. His face contorted in agony and he clutched a hand to his chest.

"Doctor!" Tevo screamed, desperately hoping there was something she could do but she knew it was too late. They'd finally run out of time.


	12. Questions

The Doctor gave another cry of pain and Tevo was starting to panic again. She was still gripping onto his shoulder and could feel that he was freezing cold, just like Murray had been, and she knew what was about to happen next. She felt like she wanted to cry. Was she really going to have to watch him die like this?

"Doctor, what do I do? Please tell me there's something I can do," she babbled in panic.

He let out more moans of pain through gritted teeth, "It's going to…I have to..." he began to say, but then as he opened his mouth to cry out again a stream of yellow light drifted upwards from it and dissipated into the air.

Tevo leapt back in shock. _What the hell?_ Now that definitely hadn't happened with Murray. "Doctor, what was that? What's happening?"

"It's ready to break out…" he answered in between cries of pain. "My body's regenerating, trying to fight it, but I can't…" He cried out again. "Can't regenerate fully…the xenomorph's interfering."

Tevo just watched what was happening to him in horror, not understanding what he'd just said. "Regenerating? What the hell do you mean?"

"It's this thing Time Lords do when we..." he tried to answer, before breaking off the sentence as he doubled over in agony.

Tevo grabbed hold of his shoulders again, desperately trying to think of something she could do to help while trying to make sense of what he was telling her. "What? But that's not even possible, is it? Unless by Time Lord you literally mean you're..."

"Ailyn, can we please save the questions for later!" he suddenly shouted out, and she abruptly shut up as she realised she wasn't helping the situation. He was still crying out in pain, and Tevo could feel him getting even colder, as if he was freezing. She tried to hide her shock as his skin began to emit a yellow glow, and instead she tried focussing on doing something useful.

"Right, sorry!" she said, still trying to think of some way she could help. "But I don't know…tell me what I should do. What do you need?" She was panicking now, realising she was being practically no help to him.

"There's too much excess energy…" he gasped, "It's fighting off the xenomorph but if I don't slow it down I'll crash. I need something…something to stabilise it. A good source of tannins…that should regulate the energy diffusion."

"Like what? What has tannins?" she asked urgently, watching his face contort in even more pain as he tried to think.

"Like… come on, need to remember," he said to himself, clearly struggling to think straight. He gave another grimace before suddenly bursting out with, "Tea! There's tannins in tea!"

Tevo couldn't stop herself from snapping in panic. "Do I bloody look like I have any tea?"

"I didn't mean I thought you had any!" he shouted out again, "No, there's something else...I'm trying to think...come on, what's a source of tannins?...strawberries, cranberries, walnuts..."

"Not got any of those either!"

"No, it's something you _have_ got...what is it?...come on, I know I've seen something nearby that could help..."

Tevo tried to think what she had to hand that might contain tannins, but she didn't even know what a tannin was. He was glowing an even brighter yellow now, and she couldn't help but give a hysterical laugh at the sight of it. She was trapped on some strange planet with two different species of alien trying to kill her, and the one species that was trying to save her was currently glowing yellow and writhing round in agony as he tried to remember something he'd seen that might have tannins in. The situation just seemed so insane that she had no idea how to handle it, but she knew she had to do something.

The idea popped into her head quite spontaneously, and she didn't even take time to think it through or consider if it would work or not before she balled her hand into a fist and punched him hard in the chest. He gave one final yell of pain before going quiet, and then rolled onto his side with a groan. She could hear him breathing heavily for a few seconds before he finally said, "Pinenuts."

"Pinenuts?" She stared at him for a moment and then looked up at the tall pine trees that made up the forest further up the bank. "Why couldn't you have remembered that earlier? There's _plenty_ of them."

"Well, it's a bit difficult to think straight when you're in the middle of a partial regeneration and a chestburster is trying to break out of you," he said rather breathlessly, "But thankfully it seems to have stopped now. I think you may have knocked it out with that punch."

Tevo drew in a deep breath and exhaled again, relieved that the immediate crisis seemed to be over. "That was the idea."

He looked up at her from where he was still laying on the ground. "Well, good thinking. I'm glad it worked, but still…ow."

She looked at him apologetically. "Sorry."

"Don't apologise," he said, shutting his eyes and taking a few moments to recover. "It hurt way more before you did anything. And I think you may have just saved my life again."

She grinned at him, even though she knew he couldn't see it. "What's that, four times each now? Does that make us even?"

She saw him smile back. "I suppose it does, although that doesn't mean you're allowed to let me die next time."

"Of course not. I'll save you, Doctor, if you'll do the same for me," she said, laying down in the sand next to him as she decided she needed a minute to recover as well.

"Deal," he responded, and as Tevo glanced over at him she was relieved to see the yellow glow of his skin had faded significantly.

They both lay there without talking for a few moments before remembering that they needed to keep moving. Tevo was the first to sit up, scowling slightly as she realised how covered in sand they both were. "Yuck, there's sand everywhere. I bloody hate sand."

Beside her she saw the Doctor beginning to sit up and he raised an eyebrow at her as she said that. "Really? I love sand. Sand's great. Especially when it's the wet, oozy kind of sand; that stuff's brilliant."

She looked at him and gave a smile, glad that he seemed to be back to normal even though they weren't out of danger yet. There was a lot she wanted to ask him, but she wanted to get back on track to finding his ship first. "Ok, which way now?" she said as she helped him to his feet.

"Well, let's see," he said as he reached into the pocket of his trenchcoat for his sonic screwdriver. Tevo vaguely wondered how he'd managed to stay afloat at all whilst wearing something like that.

"How did you manage to keep swimming? That coat looks pretty heavy," she said.

"Oh, it's the pockets," he replied as he took out the sonic screwdriver and held it up in the air.

She looked at him in confusion, "The pockets?"

"Whether or not something floats depends on how dense it is compared to water," he explained, "The pockets are bigger on the inside, which makes the coat less dense overall so it floats better."

That made no sense to her. "How can the pockets possibly be bigger on the inside?"

"Well, it's a kind of Time Lord technology," he answered, not really giving much of an explanation.

Tevo wanted to ask him more about what a Time Lord actually was, but then she saw that his hand was still shaking slightly where he gripped the sonic screwdriver and she thought that for now maybe it was best not to quiz him too much.

"It's this way," he said, tucking the screwdriver back inside his coat and taking a few steps forward, but he was still unsteady on his feet and Tevo had to put an arm round him to stop him falling.

"Thanks," he said as she supported him, "Right, we should probably stick to the river bank for now, the Tardis is in that direction. But first, I really do need to get some pinenuts. I'm still in a state of partial regeneration and I don't want to have to go all the way, if I can help it."

"Alright," she said, looking like she didn't understand a word of what he was saying, but she helped him over to the treeline where she bent down to pick up some of the large pinecones on the floor. "Are you seriously telling me that all you need is pinenuts and you'll be ok?"

"Sure I will," he said, taking a cone off her and snapping off the cone scales to empty the seeds into his palm. "Just need a few non-hydrolyzable flavones to stabilise my regeneration cycle and I'll be right as rain." He put a handful of the nuts into his mouth and chewed at them, grimacing slightly at the bitter taste. "They don't exactly taste anywhere near as good as strawberries, but they'll do." He swallowed the seeds and then flashed her a grin. "See? I'm feeling better already," he said as he took a few steps back down towards the river, completely steady on his feet.

"Good," she said as she followed him, looking relieved, "Right, this way then?"

"This way," he confirmed, and they both set off again walking down the river bank.

The Doctor allowed Tevo to walk just a couple of steps ahead of him; he didn't want to give her chance to look at his face, worried that if she did she might realise he wasn't quite as alright as he'd made out. He'd put a few of the pine cones back in his pocket, having taken everything he needed from them for now, but he was wary of relying on pinenuts too much. The xenomorph larva shared some of his DNA. If he succeeded in stabilising his own regeneration cycle then no doubt _it_ was trying to regenerate too. If he kept feeding it with a means to control the flow of regeneration energy then it would eventually become stronger than he was, and when that happened there'd be nothing he could do to stop it.

Still, he didn't want to worry Tevo any more by letting her know that just yet: she seemed scared enough already. If they got back to the Tardis in time and he found a way to get it out of him she might never need to know about it, although he had to admit that they were much further away from the Tardis now than they had been when they first started trying to reach it. And it seemed that time, for once, wasn't on his side.

Trying to keep those thoughts under control and not let panic start to get to him, he fixed his attention on Tevo just a couple of paces ahead of him. As he saw her glance back at him he forced himself to keep the worry he felt out of his expression.

"So, Doctor," she began to say, and she stopped walking momentarily to allow him to catch up with her. She had a rather businesslike expression on her face, and he sensed she was about to ask a question she wouldn't let him get away with not answering. "Are you going to explain to me what exactly just happened?" she said once he'd caught up with her. "What was all that about regeneration? How is it even possible?"

He knew that question had been coming. After everything she'd just seen there were bound to be things she wanted to know about, and he owed her an explanation. "Well, if a Time Lord gets injured or hurt in a way that would be fatal to humans, regeneration is something we can do to avoid death," he began to explain. "I've done it several times before, but the problem just now was the xenomorph larva getting in the way as my cells tried to rewrite themselves. That stopped me regenerating fully, but it meant that the xenomorph can't..."

"Wait," Tevo suddenly said to interrupt him, looking more confused than ever. "Slow down. You haven't even really told me what a Time Lord is yet. I thought that was just a kind of title or something, but do you mean that in the sense of being a _whole other species_?"

She was looking at him with an expression that seemed both awed and bewildered, and he realised that all this must be quite as lot for her to take in. "Yep, that's exactly what I mean," he answered, and he saw her eyes widen slightly as tried to process that.

"But you look human."

"You look Time Lord."

Tevo gave a shake of her head as she struggled to make sense of it. "But how...how can you look human and not be?"

He shrugged. "A lot of species evolved to have a humanoid form. I'm sure you've noticed even the yautja have a vaguely human shape. I know I _look_ like a human outwardly, but really I'm completely different. Different DNA structure, different enzymes, different physiology..."

She frowned, still looking confused. "Ok, I suppose I can accept that...sort of...but the regeneration thing; does that mean you can't die?"

He considered his answer for a moment before replying to that. "Not exactly. It means I would be able to survive _most_ situations that humans wouldn't, but there are limits."

He saw her bite her lip nervously, and she looked rather apprehensive about his answer to her next question. "So, for example, say the chestburster...could you...?"

She trailed off, but he didn't need her to finish to know what she was getting at. "I don't know," he said grimly, "And honestly, I don't want to find out. But it isn't going to come to that."

He sounded much more confident than he felt at that last sentence, but Tevo seemed to be at least partly convinced by it. She gave a nod and then seemed quite keen to move on. "Alright, so if you're a Time Lord what does that actually mean? You can't actually travel in time can you?"

It was obvious from the way she'd said it that she was sceptical of the possibility of time travel, and he couldn't help but smile a little as he answered her. "Yes, I can."

Her eyes boggled for a second and she just stared at him in disbelief. "Seriously?"

His grin broadened even further. "Yep. That _is_ why we're called Time Lords."

Tevo just stared at him in silence for a few more seconds, and then she smiled too. "Wow...okay. I wasn't expecting you to say you could literally travel in time, but that is pretty amazing. So, does that mean you're from the future?"

She was looking at him with an eagerly curious expression, and he was pleased to see that for now at least she didn't seem quite so frightened. "Um...no, not in the sense you're thinking," he answered. "I'm from a _very_ long way away from here, and relativity means that time where I'm from is completely different to yours. You can't really call it 'the future'."

She looked a little confused again. "So what would you call it then? Where _are_ you from?"

"I'm from the planet Gallifrey," he replied, which just drew a blank expression from her.

"Where's that?"

"In the constellation of Kasterborous."

"Never heard of it."

"Well, you wouldn't have," he responded with a slight smile. "You humans don't know everything, you know. You may have mapped out quite a lot of the galaxy so far, but when it comes to everything else that's out there you've barely scraped the surface."

She frowned slightly, seemingly annoyed that there was something else she wasn't able to understand, but then she quickly brushed it off and moved on. "Alright, in which case perhaps you could enlighten me on a few other things I don't know. How is it I can understand what the yautja are saying? They're not actually speaking English, are they?"

"Oh..." he began to respond, having completely forgotten she didn't know about that. The Tardis' translation system was just so familiar to him that he rarely realised other people weren't aware of it until they brought it up. "That's the Tardis translation service," he explained, "Telepathically translates everything to English for you inside your head. Makes it seem like the yautja are talking the same language as you, but actually they're just speaking...yautja-ish, if that's what you call it."

Tevo's frown deepened as she once again found herself utterly perplexed. "Doctor, I've never even _seen_ the Tardis. How can it be translating for me?"

"Well, the Tardis is linked to me, I'm linked to you...As long as she isn't too far away you'll sort of get the service by proxy, if that makes sense."

She still looked confused. "Not really."

He shrugged. "Well, never mind. As long as it's working for you then you don't have to worry too much about understanding it. So, is there anything else you want to know?"

"Actually, yes," Tevo replied, looking thoughtful for a moment. "Who was Rose?"

That took him by surprise. At the shock of being asked the question he suddenly stopped walking, and Tevo paused too and turned to look at him. She seemed a little surprised by his reaction, but more curious than ever as to what the answer was.

"Rose…" he repeated after her, before letting the sentence trail off. When he'd asked if there was anything else she wanted to know that hadn't been the kind of question he was inviting. If there was one topic he wanted to avoid it was this.

Tevo seemed to notice his reluctance to discuss the matter, but at the same time she appeared to be determined to get an answer out of him. "You called me Rose," she said insistently, "And I want to know who she is. That's only fair, right?" She stood looking at him with an expectant expression, waiting for him to answer.

He glanced down at the floor and then back up at her, letting out a sigh of sadness and frustration. He still wasn't ready to talk about his last companion. Not with Donna. Not with Tevo. Not with anyone. But although he didn't want to have to answer her he knew couldn't really avoid it. "Rose was…a friend," he said vaguely, trying not to think about it in too much detail.

" _Just_ a friend?"

Why did she have to be asking this? "Yes...no...well, yes she was a friend, but there was no _'just'_ about it. She was a friend who was _very_ important to me."

Tevo nodded, but despite seeming to have noticed his discomfort she was still keen to press him for more information. "And what happened to her?"

He looked at her, really wishing she would just let matter drop. Rose was not something he was prepared to discuss. Even questions about the Time War would be preferable to this. Still not wanting to tell her, he gave the vaguest answer possible. "She's...gone. Back with her family now."

An intrigued expression crossed Tevo's face, and he realised she was still going to ask him even more questions. "So does that mean she left you? Why?"

He'd had enough. Part of him could understand why she wanted to know what had happened to his previous companions, but it was just too painful for him to keep up this conversation any longer. "You know, I think I've answered quite a lot of your questions now," he said, trying to deflect the line of questioning back onto her. "Isn't it about time you answered some of mine?"

Tevo scowled, annoyed that he'd refused to answer, but then her expression softened as she realised that perhaps she _had_ pushed things a little too far. "Alright, I suppose that's fair," she said with a sigh, "Although I don't imagine I could tell you half as many interesting things as you could tell me."

He gave her a slightly admonishing look. "Don't say that. Just because you're not a Time Lord from Gallifrey it doesn't mean you don't have interesting stories to tell. Besides, you don't even know what it is I'm going to ask yet."

At that she smiled slightly and raised an eyebrow at him. "Ok, well, what _is_ it you want to ask?"

"Well," he began, relieved that the topic of conversation was moving into more comfortable territory, "Are you by any chance…"

Even though he'd barely begun the sentence he suddenly broke off and fell silent. Tevo gave him a puzzled look. "Doctor, I've just said you can…"

He put a finger to his lips and made a shushing noise to silence her. Realising he must be listening for something, she immediately went quiet and listened too, trying to make out whatever it was he'd heard. For a couple of seconds she couldn't hear anything, but then in the distance she thought she could make out a sound that was all too familiar to her by now: the vicious shrieking of a xenomorph.

"Shit," she muttered, suddenly scared again, "They've caught up with us."

The Doctor frowned slightly and shook his head. "No, there only seems to be one of them. And that isn't an attack cry, it's a distress cry."

Tevo raised an eyebrow at him. "So a xenomorph is in distress? Good. Now if you don't mind it sounds far too close for my liking so can we please keep moving?"

He shook his head again. "No, wait, there's something else as well. It sounds…metallic?...mechanical?"

Tevo listened again, but she still couldn't hear anything except the faint shrieks of the xenomorph. "Doctor, I really don't…"

"Let's find out!" he said suddenly, and began to run back into the trees.

Tevo stared after him for a few seconds in bewilderment. "Wait, that's the sound of a xenomorph and you're running _towards_ it?"

She didn't get a reply, but as he reached the edge of the forest she realised she had little choice but to follow him. "Oh, what the hell," she muttered to herself, and began to run after him.


	13. The Truth About Tevo

Tevo followed him up a steep incline through the forest and saw him stop at the edge of what appeared to be a clearing. As she caught up with him she saw that they were standing at the edge of a deep pit that appeared to have been deliberately cleared of trees, and looking down she saw a circular hatch in the floor at its base. The hatch door was a flat sheet of metal with a line across its diameter that showed where it opened. The sounds of the xenomorph and intensified now and definitely seemed to be coming from somewhere below the hatch, and Tevo realised the Doctor had been right: there was the sound of something metallic clanging, like the rattling of heavy chains.

Tevo glanced at the Doctor and saw the way he was staring grimly down into the pit. "What is it?" she asked, unnerved.

"It's a xenomorph queen," he said without looking at her, although she thought she could detect a note of disgust in his voice. "I knew they must have one somewhere on this planet. Kept in chains just to provide sport for them. You hear that rattling sound? That's the machine they're using to harvest the eggs."

She stared down at the hatch door, trying to imagine what was going on underneath it. A giant queen xenomorph, spawning more of those hideous looking egg things she'd seen back on the ship? She didn't want to be anywhere near it and wished they could leave, but something told her the Doctor was thinking of something else entirely.

She watched as he gave a disapproving shake of his head. "For a race that cares so much about honour they don't seem to have much of it when it comes to how they treat other living creatures."

Quite clearly the whole thing was bothering him, and although a small part of her could understand why mostly she just didn't care. "Well, isn't their idea of honour killing something? And if that's the case I'd rather they killed a xenomorph than me."

"Yes, well listen to it!" he snapped, and she was taken aback by just how angry he was, "They're _not_ killing it, are they? They're torturing it. Making it live its life out in complete misery just because they want more xenomorphs to hunt. Even if the hunting itself wasn't bad enough they just _have_ to take things one step further."

"How can you talk like that?" she snapped back, "Being all sympathetic with those things when they're what did _that_ to you." She jabbed him in the chest with a finger and he winced slightly, but she didn't care. "It's like you care more about them than you do about getting us out of here. Maybe there's some deep philosophical reason you've come up with as to why the welfare of xenomorphs is so important, but don't I matter too? You seem to be forgetting that they're vicious predators that kill people whereas I'm the human here!"

He glared at her. "Yes you are," he said, with more than a note of bitterness in his voice, "So typically human."

"And what's that supposed to mean?" she snapped, furious that after everything that had happened he was being like this with her.

"What it means," he said, seemingly as angry now as when he'd confronted the yautja earlier, "Is that you just don't get it. It doesn't matter what species they're doing it to, locking something in chains and hunting its offspring for sport is still wrong."

"But it's a fucking xenomorph!" she shouted back. "It deserves it. Or did you forget what happened to Murray and Adrick? Or what's going to happen to you?"

The moment Tevo said that she immediately regretted it, realising how scared he must already be without her pointing that out as well, but it didn't seem to faze him. He continued to glare furiously at her, seemingly frustrated that he couldn't make her understand. "Yes, xenomorphs are one of the nastiest creatures that ever evolved, but that doesn't make it alright for..."

He didn't finish the sentence as Tevo suddenly grabbed hold of him and pulled him to the floor, noticing the three dots of light that had appeared on his forehead a second before the blast from the plasma cannon shot past them. They rolled a few feet down the slope they'd just run up and then stopped, continuing to glare at each other for a few seconds before each of their expressions softened. Tevo looked scared again whereas the Doctor seemed apologetic. "I'm sorry," he said, "You _do_ matter and I'm going to get you out of here, but sometimes it seems like…"

"Save it for later," she said as she took out another imploding disc and glanced back up the slope. He didn't show any kind of reaction to that other than that he stopped talking, taking out his sonic screwdriver and inching back up towards where they'd just been standing. He looked across over to the other side of the ridge, and as he saw a ripple of movement against the backdrop of trees he held up his sonic screwdriver to send the next blast of plasma askew. As the plasma collided harmlessly with a tree behind him he switched the settings on his screwdriver to deactivate the yautja's camouflage, and he saw the armed shape of the predator appear on the far side of the pit. It was looking directly at him and its stance was unmistakably angry.

He just watched it for a second before he saw movement off to his left and Tevo appeared beside him, her hand raised to try and throw the disc as far as she could towards the yautja. He grabbed her arm to stop her and she looked at him in irritation, "Oh, you're not sympathising with them as well now."

He flashed her a glare and she immediately looked like she regretted saying anything. "Oh alright," she said apologetically. It was probably best not to waste the discs anyway when they had so few of them. "So what now?"

They both looked over at the yautja as another shot went wide from its decalibrated shoulder cannon, and as it seemed to realise that weapon was doing no good it leapt into the pit and began to run towards them.

"Crap," Tevo muttered and took a couple of steps backwards, grabbing hold of the Doctor's arm to try and get him to run but he wasn't moving. "Doctor, come on!"

"No," he said, pointing his sonic screwdriver at the yautja which immediately slowed down and looked around in confusion.

"Doctor!" Tevo shouted urgently.

"I can mess with its mask, keep it confused for a bit," he said, still watching the yautja, "You keep going."

"How am I supposed to know where to go without you?"

"I'll catch up with you."

"Not if you're dead." Despite the snark with which she'd said it the underlying fear in her voice was still evident, and he turned his head to face her.

"Ailyn…"

Just at that point he heard the sound of a xenomorph shriek behind him, and both he and Tevo turned to see where a xenomorph had just appeared from the trees and launched itself at the disorientated yautja. The yautja had been attempting to take off its mask in order to see properly, and the xenomorph's jaws went straight for the exposed throat, spilling green blood everywhere.

The Doctor stared at it in horror for a second and then turned back to Tevo. "Alright, _now_ I'm coming," he said as they began to run again.

They were running back downhill again on a different path to the one they'd come in, and as they reached the foot of the slope Tevo glanced up to see the xenomorph hadn't yet reached the other side of the pit. "I don't think it's followed us," she was just beginning to say, but then she heard it shriek again, most definitely closer this time. "Okay, maybe not," she said, turning back round to keep running.

"Well, let's get in there then," she heard the Doctor say from a few metres ahead of her, and she was just about to ask, "Get in where?" when she saw what he was looking at.

Several yards in front of them off to their left was what appeared to be the top of a metal bunker set low into the ground. "Where the hell did that come from?" Tevo shouted just as she caught up with him, but all he said to her was "Quickly!" as he opened the door with the sonic screwdriver and pulled her inside.

The Doctor slammed the door shut and locked it with the screwdriver behind him, and for a few seconds there was silence between him and Tevo as they both listened to the sounds of the xenomorph moving outside. Inside the bunker it was dark and they couldn't see each other, but as they heard the noise from the xenomorph scrabbling past fade into the distance they both breathed audible sighs of relief. The Doctor turned to press his back against the door and then slid down to the floor, putting his head back against the metal and shutting his eyes. His memory flashed back to just seconds before when the xenomorph had attacked the yautja. _The yautja hadn't seen it coming,_ he thought. _Never had chance to defend itself. It was my fault._ He knew his thought processes weren't entirely rational: he'd only been trying to stop the yautja killing him and Tevo and he hadn't known that the xenomorph would appear from nowhere, but still. It felt like he'd killed it. Even if it was unavoidable there was still something about it that he loathed.

That uncomfortable moment of introspection was interrupted as a light flickered overhead and the bunker was suddenly illuminated in a dim yellow glow. He looked over to where Tevo was standing with her fingers on a switch on the wall. "Just turning the lights on," she said as she noticed him looking at her. "Thought we could probably stay here just for a few minutes, since it seems reasonably safe and we could both do with a rest."

He didn't reply, but instead just put his head back against the door and didn't look directly at her. He could feel her gaze on him for a few more seconds, but then she turned away and started looking around the bunker. He didn't pay attention to what she was doing, but after the awkward silence between them had dragged out for several more seconds he finally heard her sigh and she began to talk.

"Look, I'm sorry too," she said, crossing over to him and sitting down next to him. "I just can't understand how your mind works. Maybe if I was sat at home, completely safe and we were talking this over, perhaps then I'd be able to make sense of what you're thinking. But right now I'm just scared, and all I want is to get out of this alive."

He turned to look at her, and was taken somewhat by surprise when he found himself staring straight into her wide blue eyes only inches away. Despite them being a different colour, the look in them – one of unmistakable fear yet complete and utter trust – reminded him far too much of Rose, and he had to look away again. "I know," he said softly. "I know you're scared, and I'm not angry with you for it. It's just that…" he trailed off and gave another heavy sigh.

She watched him silently for a couple of seconds, and when he didn't continue she tried to prompt him. "Just that what?"

He wished he could explain it to her, but he just didn't really know how. The human race may be brilliant, but sometimes they just seemed completely incapable of seeing things from a different perspective. "Just that nothing," he said, taking a pine cone out of his pocket and snapping off some of the scales to get to the seeds. She watched him in silence for a couple of seconds, and he thought she might try and press the matter further, but then she got up again and went back to looking round the bunker.

"What is this place, anyway?" she asked, looking at the various items on the shelves attached to the walls.

He followed her gaze to the strange pieces of equipment lining the shelves and swallowed a mouthful of pinenuts before answering. "Looks like a medical bay," he said.

"Oh?"

He explained further. "If one of the yautja got injured on a hunt they could use this as a temporary base to treat themselves and then go back out again. Normally they wouldn't bother with a base, but on a planet as densely populated with xenomorphs as this they probably thought they needed some kind of extra protection. I expect all those things on the shelves are some kind of medical equipment."

"Right," she said, picking up a metal device with a hook on the end from one of the shelves, which she examined briefly before setting it back down. "So what is it you were going to ask me, Doctor, before you went running off after the xenomorph?" she suddenly asked as she turned back to him. She saw him swallow another mouthful of seeds and put a hand to his chest in discomfort before answering.

"Actually, I was going to ask if you were by any chance related to Baroness Simone Tiber of Alhena," he said, looking back up at her with an expression that suggested he already knew the answer.

She stared at him in surprise for a couple of seconds, and then went back to fiddling with the items on the shelves, trying to avoid the question. "What makes you ask that?"

"Because," he said, sounding as if he was about to launch into an explanation that he knew was going to be impressive, "Although it isn't common knowledge, I do remember that before she married the shipping magnate Baron Magnus Tiber of Alhena her maiden name was Simone Tevo. I just wondered if you were perhaps a relation, especially since their daughter went missing all those years ago."

She glanced back over at him, and as she met his gaze she knew he'd already worked it out. He just wanted her to tell him for herself. "Actually, yes. She's my mother," she said, trying to act as if it was no big deal for her. "And if you're thinking that I'm their missing daughter, well, you're right. I don't quite see why it matters to you but well worked out. Now is that all you wanted to know?"

"Well," he said, sounding curious, "That and why you ended up becoming a pirate when you're the daughter of the biggest merchant shipping tycoon in the galaxy?"

She just stared at him, amazed at how much he'd managed to deduce just from knowing her last name. Even if he didn't know why she'd decided to become a pirate, he'd managed what plenty of others had failed to do and worked out who she really was. How long had he known this for? Ever since he'd met her? Or had he been gradually working it out?

She gave a sigh and sat down on the floor a few feet away from him. Nobody knew this about her. Not even Ellis or Adrick or her first mate Murray had known the full story. Was she really about to tell the Doctor? A man she'd only met less than two days ago? She didn't even need to ask herself that question. He'd already saved her life several times over and she trusted him completely. "Well, I guess if you know who I am you've already worked out that my real name isn't Ailyn Tevo."

He nodded but remained silent, waiting for her to continue.

"Well, officially I was given the first name Helen after the star I was born under: Gamma Gemini, or Alhena as it's sometimes known as. It's Helen in my father's language, but in my mother's language it's Ailyn, and I always preferred that. Officially my last name is Tiber, but I preferred my mother's maiden name too; I never wanted to be known by the same last name as my tosser of a father."

Once she'd said that he frowned slightly. "Surely he can't have been that bad?"

She gave a snort, "Well, put it this way, he's the reason I ran away to become a pirate."

He didn't react much to that, but instead continued to watch her, his curiosity apparent. "Go on."

She blushed slightly and then stared at the floor. "I guess this is the part where I'm supposed to say something genuinely bad like he abused me or beat me or something, but really that's not even close."

He looked intrigued. "Well, what is it then?"

"It's pretty pathetic actually," she said, sounding as if the reason seemed stupid even to her. "The truth is, he bored me."

The Doctor raised an eyebrow at her. "His great crime is that he bored you?"

She glanced at him briefly and then looked away again. "I told you it was pathetic. Yes, he bored me. Him and his stupid bloody shipping company. We never really got on and we had this one stupid argument that we both totally overreacted to, and then I left and we never saw each other again. He really wasn't an _absolutely_ terrible father, but he was just so self-absorbed that he never paid attention to what _I_ wanted. He'd got it into his head that I was going to be just like him when I grew up: I was going to take over the company, carry on overseeing the shipping routes between the same bloody star ports over and over again and then count up the day's earnings in the evenings. Live a thoroughly tedious life, basically. He was so determined that was what was going to happen that he started me on the pilot training program when I was fourteen. Never even thought to ask me how I felt about that, and the truth was I just found it so dull. What I wanted was to enrol in the Intergalactic Expeditionary Program as soon as I turned eighteen, but when I finally got up the courage to tell him that he completely flipped out. Told me that if I ever tried to leave the galaxy he was going to send me to his most remote logistics base on Alderamin Four and never let me leave, so I ran away before he had chance. Now he thinks I'm off somewhere on the way to Andromeda by now, and he's probably given up hope of ever seeing me again, if he even cared in the first place." She looked back up at him again, worried what he must think to that. "It's ridiculous, isn't it? Privileged daughter of one of the galaxy's most successful aristocratic businessmen running away from home just because she was bored with her life. You must think I'm a complete brat for it."

He shook his head. "Of course I don't." Really, he didn't think she was a brat for it at all. From what he'd seen of her he knew she'd never have been able to settle into the kind of lifestyle she'd just described. Even if her reaction to that one argument with her father was a little extreme, he didn't think it made her a brat. "But since you _are_ still in the galaxy," he continued, still curious, "I take it you never enrolled in the expeditionary program?"

She shook her head. "I never got chance. I was trying to reach one of the Vega colonies to get as far away as possible, but the ship I was stowing away on belonged to Alfonse Basili."

He seemed intrigued by that. "Your father's main rival?"

She nodded. "And I ended up getting caught. It was just my luck that the man himself happened to be on board that day and they took me straight to him. He knew who I was and wanted to send me straight back home, but I begged him not to. He asked why he shouldn't, so I told him I knew so much about my father's ships and trade routes I could help him sabotage the Tiber industry and make more money for himself. I was _that_ desperate not to be sent back home, although thinking about it now I probably had no reason to be. Basili was a bastard for agreeing to it, but he did. I changed my name to Ailyn Tevo so no-one would find out who I was, then I basically helped him outdo my father in every way possible. I helped get him the information he needed to outbid my father on key contracts, helped his traders beat Tiber's to the prime spots, even helped with some of the illegal stuff he did when it came to piracy and hijacking starships. Four years later I'd gotten so good at it that he gave me a ship and a crew, made me a captain, and then sent me to attack my own father's ships. I didn't still hate my father at that point but I won't pretend I felt bad about what I was doing. Actually, I loved it. I was finally getting the adventure I'd always wanted, and I hadn't even had to leave the galaxy to do it."

He was still watching her, and as she looked up at him again she thought he seemed to be smiling slightly, even though he was still managing to look a little disapproving. "So that's how you became a space pirate?"

She nodded. "Well, privateer, technically, since I work for Alfonse Basili, but yeah, that's basically it."

Despite her already having told him so much, he still looked curious. "So what was the deal with the _Revenant_ then?" he asked. "That was a massive project of Tiber's, wasn't it? Investing all that money in developing a warp nine capacity ship for commercial purposes. He won't be very happy it's gone missing."

She gave a rather uneasy smile. "No, he won't, but that was the general idea. He'd been planning that project for years, ever since before I left. Entered into a contract with the pharmaceutical company PharmGalactic, promising them he'd be able to provide the safest, most efficient transport for their medicines on the supply routes to the Earth Colonies. Except Basili wanted that contract for himself, but didn't want to go to the effort of designing and building a new ship. So he sent me to hijack the _Revenant_ instead. The idea was for this shipment to go missing, Tiber would take the flak for it, and then Basili would conveniently 'find an alternative supplier' and make a huge profit out of it."

Once she'd finished explaining he gave her a disapproving look. "So hundreds of potentially life saving drugs have gone missing just because Tiber and Basili keep trying to outdo each other?"

She scowled defensively. "They weren't _supposed_ to go missing," she said, feeling as if his statement had been a judgement on her, although she thought he probably hadn't meant it that way. "We always intended for them to reach the colonies eventually, but it wasn't like there were any cancer drugs or anything on board. I don't think anybody's actually going to die because of it. Most of it was just the kind of stuff you'd keep in your medicine cabinet at home; they'll be able to find other suppliers."

He sighed, thinking just how big the repercussions of the _Revenant_ crash landing here would be, but he knew Tevo hadn't intended for anything this bad to happen. Even though she'd chosen to follow Basili's orders that had led to them ending up here, he knew that what had really caused this was the same thing that always seemed to damage the human race: greed.

If Basili hadn't been so desperate to make more money he wouldn't have sent Tevo and her crew to hijack the ship, and they wouldn't be here now. But by the same token, if the yautja hadn't been transmitting the electromagnetic storm to bring ships down they wouldn't be here now either. Basili may have had self-serving intentions, but it was the yautja who were being hostile and malicious. The Doctor knew he was going to have to think of something he could do to stop them soon, but right now there was still something else he was trying to work out. "So how did you commandeer the _Revenant,_ exactly?" he asked suddenly.

Tevo looked at him, seeming as though she hadn't been expecting the question, but then she gave a sigh. "Trust me, it _really_ isn't all that impressive," she said with a slightly disappointed look.

 _That's different to the impression she was trying to give me earlier_ , he thought, but then he supposed that by now she felt less inclined to try and mislead him. After everything they'd been through she probably cared much less about trying to impress him, but he was still keen to know. "Oh come on, you said you commandeered it with a star system cruiser. I'd love to know how you managed that," he prompted.

Tevo smiled weakly at that, deciding that if he was so interested she may as well tell him. It wasn't like it really mattered now anyway. "Well, we _did_ have a star system cruiser," she began, "And it had a nice official looking emblem on the side so we could just drift around space and nobody really suspected us of anything. On the day the _Revenant_ was scheduled to pass through the Pleione system we positioned ourselves just outside the outer planet's orbit waiting for the ship to arrive. When it did, we flagged it down, informed its crew that they were entering a new independent star system, and asked if they had anything to declare. They completely bought into us being official border security, didn't realise that the real border patrol ship was on the far side of the orbit."

"I don't suppose they had any reason to doubt it," the Doctor commented. "Pleione's an independent state; it's not part of the Galactic Federation. Cargo ships on the colonial routes tend to go round it rather than through it to avoid having to pay transit tax, but I expect it was part of Tiber's plan to improve efficiency by taking a shortcut."

Tevo nodded. "The cost of the shipping tariffs was supposed to be offset by the time and fuel saved with the new warp drive, plus Pleione's a large system and it would have taken three times longer to go round it rather than through it. It was the _Revenant_ 's maiden voyage so none of the crew had any experience dealing with Pleionean customs. When we asked if they had anything to declare they told us about the drugs they had on board, and then we managed to convince them they had to agree to an inspection to confirm it was all licensed and they weren't carrying any illegal substances. So basically they just agreed to let us dock the cruiser on one of their ports. Just as well it worked, because we wouldn't have had a hope in hell of taking the ship by force. It had anti-piracy technology in place and they had a crew of twenty-one, whereas there were only six of us. So we just walked straight on board, pretended to do an inspection of the goods, and then told the captain that since the star Pleione was a subtonic ray emitter everybody on board was going to have to be immunised against radiation before they could pass through. And, amazingly, they bought into that as well."

The Doctor thought he'd worked out where this was going, but allowed her to continue.

"Basili had given us about 150 mil of dopranazol solution, and they all volunteered to be injected with it, thinking it was going to stop them getting subtonic radiation poisoning, and then about ten minutes later they all passed out. We bundled them onto the cruiser, shifted our weapons and gear onto the _Revenant_ and took off with it, then set the cruiser on course to dock on Pleione Two. The crew would have woken up after two days without a clue what had happened. Probably wouldn't even remember boarding the _Revenant_ in the first place, and by the time the Pleionean authorities worked out what had happened and contacted the Federal police then the _Revenant_ would have completely vanished. Although as it turned out, it vanished even more completely than Basili had been expected." As she finished the explanation she turned to the Doctor and was surprised to see he was smiling slightly. "What?" she asked.

"I don't know, that was quite impressive in its own way," he said, "Not the all-guns-blazing approach, but quite clever. If you're going to take a ship that way's much more preferable than doing it by force."

She shrugged. "We just did it whichever way was easiest," she said, getting up and starting to look round the bunker again, signalling to him that that conversation was over. It seemed like she didn't want to discuss it any further; perhaps because that meant having to think about the rest of her crew who were now dead.

He looked at her thoughtfully for a few moments. It was interesting, he thought, how she'd answered much more of his questions and shared far more with him about her past than he'd told her about his, and he wondered if perhaps she was expecting him to now tell her more in return. On the contrary, however, she seemed quite keen to change the topic entirely.

"Do you think there might be any weapons in here?" she asked as she looked along the shelves again.

He shook his head. "No, it's a medical bay, not an armoury," he said, turning away from her again and putting yet more pinenuts in his mouth. He hadn't stopped chewing on them ever since they'd arrived in the bunker, and even though he was worried about taking too many his chest had been hurting persistently ever since they'd started running from the xenomorph. He kept feeling the larva moving, and even as he'd been sat there listening to Tevo he'd felt it pressing uncomfortably up against his lower alveoli tubes, making breathing a bit more awkward than usual. But at least it wasn't trying to burst out of him, and that was the good thing. If it tried anything then any cells that were damaged would immediately regenerate, and provided there was a steady flow of regeneration energy to keep it subdued then hopefully there would be time to reach the Tardis and do something to get rid of it. Although in all honesty, he didn't know _what_ that would be _._ There were all sorts of different kinds of technologies stored away on the Tardis and even he didn't know what they all were, but he was hoping that he'd be able to find something that could help him.

He was just dwelling on that when he heard Tevo ask, "What's this, then?" and he turned to look, wondering if she had found a weapon after all, but as he saw what she was holding both his hearts sped up as he felt a sudden surge of hope.

"Ailyn," he said, grinning at her, " _That_ is brilliant!"


	14. Possible Solutions

Tevo glanced down at the device in her hands and then back up at him, a little confused. She'd thought it looked like a weapon of some sort, with its wide square muzzle and apparent trigger mechanism, but she doubted that if it was indeed a weapon he would have reacted like that. "Why? What is it?"

"It's a low-mass bioteleport," he explained, getting up off the floor and crossing to her to get a better look at it. "The yautja use them if one of their own ever gets impregnated by a xenomorph. The xenomorph reproduction works by fusing DNA with the host, and if ever yautja and xenomorph DNA was combined then that would be an abomination as far as the yautja are concerned. It happened once, on Earth a long time ago, so they invented these as a precaution to stop it happening again."

"Wait," Tevo said, suddenly realising why it was so brilliant, "So we could use this to get it out of you?"

He nodded, "It's got a remote teleport beam that locks onto anything containing xenomorph DNA. It'll pick out the larva and teleport it into that port dock you've just picked it up from while leaving all other tissues undamaged," he said as he pointed at the shelf behind her, and she glanced at it briefly before looking back to him.

"Well, what are we waiting for?" she said, raising the teleport to point at him, and for a moment he was just so desperate to get it out of him that he went along with it, but then he realised he was rushing into things and put up a hand to stop her.

"No, wait," he said, "Not yet, I need to think."

Tevo lowered the teleport gun and frowned at him. "Do we really have time to think?" she said, wishing they could just get it over with, but then she noticed the worried expression on his face and realised there must be something he wasn't telling her. "Why? Is it dangerous?"

She didn't much like how nervous he looked before he answered. "I don't know. It's only ever been tried on yautja before."

"And what happened to them?" she asked apprehensively.

"Well, of the few I know about, half of them died," he said, and then seeing the look of horror on Tevo's face quickly added, "But Time Lords are pretty tough, I've got a better chance of surviving it than any yautja."

"You mean you could regenerate?" she asked hopefully.

He gave an uncertain shake of his head. "I'm not sure. I'm full of regeneration energy right now but I can't regenerate fully while it's still in me. A lot of the energy's getting used up to fight it off, but if anything goes wrong then I might not have enough left to complete a full regeneration cycle straight away. I'd need time to replenish it."

"And we don't have time," Tevo said grimly. The more they thought about it the more they realised this wasn't going to be quite as straightforward as they'd hoped.

He shut his eyes slowly and then opened them again as he continued to think. "We've left it so long the larva's fully matured by now. There's been time for a lot of its DNA to be absorbed into my bloodstream. You'll have to do the teleport at close range, or the results could be pretty nasty."

She gave a nod, "Alright, anything else?"

"Well, just try and make sure you get all of it. We don't really want any bits of acidic xenomorph getting left behind."

"Making me nervous about all the stuff that _could_ go wrong is not helping."

"Right, sorry," he said, looking first apologetic and then as if he was trying to be reassuring. "In that case, don't worry about it. It's not like we have any other options, so we may as well just get on with it and hope it goes smoothly."

She just continued to stare at him for a few seconds, and then raised the teleport gun to point at him again. "Right, so what do I do with it? Just point it at you and pull the trigger?"

He nodded. "Yep, the beam's already configured to pick out xenomorph DNA so that's pretty much all there is to it."

"Right," she said, positioning the teleport gun so that it was just a couple of inches from his chest. "Ready?"

"Ye…no! Wait!" He took a step back from her and Tevo jumped slightly at his sudden outburst before lowering the gun.

"If you don't want this to go wrong don't bloody do that! I almost pulled the trigger then."

"Sorry," he said, beginning to pace up and down the bunker. "I still need to think. We can't just rush into this; we haven't thought of a way to stop the yautja yet. I don't want to make a move until we've considered all our options."

Tevo stared at him in frustration. Once again she found herself completely unable to understand his thought processes. Why was he letting himself remain in danger now when they could come up with a plan later? "I thought you said we could report them to the galactic police?"

"I know," he responded, still pacing, "But I've been thinking more about that and it's not going to work. The yautja don't like being told what to do. When the humans first tried to stop the yautja hunting them they made a secret deal to send criminals to yautja hunting planets as game, but when they got found out the courts enforced article 36 of the Shadow Proclamation to put a stop to that too. The yautja were not happy. If humans try and use the law against them again it could be enough to start a war, or a war with _some_ of the yautja clans at any rate."

Tevo didn't fully understand what he was talking about but she could definitely grasp how bad a war between humans and yautja would be. "So what's the alternative to reporting them?"

"We have to make it so they can't carry on," he said, with the kind of expression on his face that suggested he was coming up with a plan. "They need the queen to provide the eggs, and then they bring humans here and use them to breed more prey. But if we take away their control of the queen, we take away their control of the xenomorph population. They can't keep breeding prey if they're not in charge of the eggs."

Tevo was beginning to understand, but she didn't like what she thought it meant. "Now if this was my plan I'd be suggesting we try and kill the queen, but you're thinking we should set it free, aren't you?"

He nodded, frowning at her slightly. "Yes, that's my plan, and it's better than yours."

"Because it doesn't involve killing?"

"Well, that and because it's practically impossible to kill a queen xenomorph anyway. Not to mention that even if we did manage it another one of the drones would undergo a sex change to become new queen, so it would be completely pointless."

Her eyes widened. "Are you serious?"

"Yes, but anyway, back to the point. We need to free the queen to stop the yautja."

Tevo couldn't quite believe what he was suggesting. To her the whole plan just sounded insane. "You've just said it's practically impossible to kill a queen xenomorph and now you're suggesting we should try to free one. How do you propose we do that without getting ourselves killed, exactly?"

From the expression on his face she could tell he was thinking very quickly. "Well, _you_ don't. I could."

"Oh yeah? How?"

He stopped pacing and turned to look at her. "You remember that first xenomorph we encountered in the forest? It looked like it was about to attack me, but then it didn't and went for you instead."

She had a feeling this was all going to make sense, but she needed him to explain it properly to her. "Yeah, I remember it."

"Xenomorphs secrete pheromones that can be detected by other xenomorphs. It didn't attack me because it knew I had a larva in me."

"Well, that didn't stop the other one attacking you later on."

He shook his head dismissively. "There were loads of them around by that point. It couldn't distinguish between me and any of the others. If I'm on my own with the queen it shouldn't try to kill me."

She looked at him with an expression of worried scepticism. "How certain about that are you?"

"Certain enough," he said, and then turned to head towards the door. "Right, best get going then."

"Whoa, wait!" Tevo suddenly said, shocked that this was all happening so quickly. "You mean _now_?"

He turned to look at her and raised an eyebrow. "Why? Do you think I should wait until it's a more convenient time for the xenomorph?"

She shook her head. "No, it's just that…" she trailed off, realising that actually the sooner they did it the sooner they could get out of here. "In fact, no, you're right. Let's go now."

"Ah," he said, moving to stand in front of her as she tried to get to the door. "It's just me that's going, not you."

She stared up at him in confusion. "What? Why?"

"Well, the queen won't attack _me._ That doesn't mean I can stop it attacking you if you're in the same room, so you're staying here."

"You're leaving me on my own?" The horror she felt at that prospect was apparent in her voice.

He gave her an apologetic nod, feeling bad that he was going to have to leave her by herself, but there was nothing he could do about it. "You'll be safe here. It's secure against xenomorphs and the chances of a yautja actually needing to use it are practically zero."

"But what if something happens to you? What if you come across more yautja or xenomorphs out while you're out there?"

"Well, I'll just have to run fast, won't I? This place is only two minutes away from where I need to get to; I think I'll be able to make it back."

She still looked far from reassured. "Yes, but what if something _does_ happen to you?"

"It won't," he said, and he thought he sounded much more confident about it than he actually felt. "I promise. Ailyn, I don't want to have to kill any of them if I can help it, but if I _can't_ help it I'll do whatever I have to to stay alive. I'll be back here with you in a matter of minutes, but you have _got_ to stay put."

She gave a frustrated sigh, realising she wasn't going to be able to change his mind. "Alright, fine," she said as he turned to the door to unlock the electric mechanism that kept the sliding bolt on it in place. "But if you're not back in ten minutes…"

"I will be," he said, not giving her chance to finish before he'd opened the door, exited, and then closed it behind him again, leaving her standing among the strange alien equipment and unwelcoming fluorescent lights completely alone.


	15. Freeing The Queen

As soon as he left the bunker the Doctor began to run as fast as possible back towards the pit where they'd seen the hatch. Despite what he'd said to Tevo, he actually wasn't all that sure this would work. If they freed the queen then the yautja might just decide to go and recapture it and carry on. No doubt several of them would get killed in the process, but they didn't really seem to care about dying as long as they did so in a way that they considered honourable. Maybe if enough of them died then they wouldn't be able to continue with what they'd been doing anyway – he wasn't sure just how big this particular clan might be - but even so he didn't much like the idea that all of them were going to have to die just because they were too stubborn to back down. Sometimes the yautja's stubbornness and bloodthirstiness when it came to hunting things bordered on pathological stupidity.

Even as he was running up the slope he heard the sound of a xenomorph shriek in the distance, and he knew Tevo had been right. It wasn't safe out here. Even if he did manage to free the queen, then there was the issue of getting back to Tevo safely and them both managing to reach the Tardis. He really was going to have to be fast.

He reached the pit and ran towards the hatch in the ground, glancing up briefly at the body of the yautja lying just a few feet away, and then looked away again as he tried not to think about it. He used the sonic screwdriver to open the hatch door, and as he did so the sounds of the xenomorph shrieking and snarling underground suddenly became much louder. He lowered himself down into the hatch, dropping down the last couple of feet to land on the floor of the dimly lit tunnel below. The tunnel stretched out in both directions, but he could hear in which direction the sounds of the xenomorph were coming from. He held up the sonic screwdriver above his head to close the hatch again and began to run towards the noise, desperately hoping that this plan was going to work.

-oOo-

Tevo bolted the door behind the Doctor and set the bioteleport back on its shelf before sitting back down on the floor again, already feeling more scared than ever. If he hadn't been with her earlier she didn't think she would have lasted more than five minutes in the forest, and now she knew she was going to have to survive on her own. Even though he'd promised he'd only be a few minutes she knew there was a very real chance that he wasn't coming back at all. More than anything it was the not knowing what was happening to him that was tormenting her. Why had he insisted on going on his own? Even though he'd told her it was because she'd be in too much danger, she thought that she was in _less_ danger the closer she was to him. He seemed to have a knack for being able to survive the most dangerous of situations, and she really hoped that was going to be enough for him to survive the next few minutes.

But, damn it, he wasn't even armed. All he had were a few imploding discs, and Tevo was certain that he had less than her and she only had three. She wished she'd argued more persistently with him to not go out on his own. He was completely insane, she'd decided. Completely brilliant to have come up with a plan and be brave enough to go through it; but still insane to refuse to kill anything or even carry a proper weapon. If he'd reached the hatch then she was almost certain he would have just walked right past the body of the yautja without even thinking to take its weapons. That would have been the first thing she'd have done if it was her going out there, but instead she was stuck here waiting for him to come back.

She gave a groan of frustration as she suddenly got up from the floor again and began to pace, hating this feeling of being so damn useless. Why was she just sitting here? The Doctor had told her to stay put, but she was going to have to leave the bunker anyway eventually. What if she went and got the yautja's weapons herself? As the Doctor had pointed out, the hatch was only a two minute run away. She'd rather ensure she was properly armed later on than waste this opportunity for the sake of a few minutes of relative safety. It wasn't like the door was locked from the outside, she could just go now…

But even as she put her hand on the sliding bolt to open the door she backed off again, her resolve to get on and do it wavering somewhat. Despite the fact she knew it made sense to try and find a way to arm herself, the thought of going out there on her own was completely terrifying. It wasn't like she was incapable of doing things on her own or thinking for herself – on several occasions she'd been the one calling the shots when her crew had attacked other starships – but this situation was just so completely alien to her she just desperately wanted to be around somebody who knew how to handle it. _But he can't handle it, can he?_ she thought, _At least, not all of it. He may know exactly what to do and have these brilliant plans and be completely fearless, but he can't handle killing them. He's never going to be the first one to attack._ She knew that was the truth, and she also knew that if he wasn't the first one to make a move against the creatures hunting them then he was so much more likely to get himself killed. That was why she needed to do something.

She turned back to the door and bit her lip nervously as she tried to make a decision. How long had it been? Hardly any time at all. She'd already decided that if he wasn't back in ten minutes she was going after him, and if it turned out she couldn't find him…well, she didn't want to think about that. He hadn't been gone five minutes so far, it wasn't reasonable to expect him to be back yet, but the sooner she made her move the better. If she took the bioteleport with her she could go and find him straight away and they'd both be able to get moving again as quickly as possible.

Tevo crossed back to the shelf where she'd left the bioteleport gun and picked it up again, using the clip that held it in place in its slot on the port dock to attach it to her belt. Now she'd be able to run with it and she wouldn't have to wait for the Doctor to get back here. If he'd managed to set the queen free then there was the problem of an even-stronger-than-usual xenomorph roaming the forest, but that problem wouldn't go away just because she waited here for him to get back. If anything, she thought that if the queen was roaming around outside it would be worse for her to become trapped here rather than being able to run away. If she managed to get hold of the yautja's weapons before the xenomorph escaped then at least she'd have a way to defend herself, but in order to do that she was going to have to make a decision in the next minute.

She put her hand on the back on the bolt handle of the door, then removed it again as she found she was hesitant to actually open it. _Damn it, Ailyn, stop being so indecisive,_ she scolded herself. The Doctor had told her to stay here, but he'd also told her she should care about how badly the yautja treated the xenomorphs and she really didn't agree with him about that either. He may be the one providing the transport out of here, but she was damn well prepared to kill every other living thing on this planet if that was what it took to keep them alive, and that was why she needed to go _now_.

Her fingers closed around the handle again, much more firmly this time. She was going to get some weapons, then she was going to find the Doctor and they were both going to get out of here. That was her plan, but in order to make it work she _had_ to get out of this door. _Right, I'm going to do this,_ she thought. _Three…_

_It's going to be dangerous._

_Two…_

_But it's better than staying here._

_One._

She opened the door and ran.

-oOo-

Setg'inte was aware of it the moment the hatch door opened. As the most experienced yautja on this hunt he'd been the one designated with the command of the ship that had brought them here and control of the unit where they kept the serpent queen. When the door to the unit had been opened an alarm had been activated on his mask display, and Setg'inte knew immediately that it must be the Time Lord. So, perhaps it thought it could win by setting the serpent free? Well, Setg'inte wasn't going to let that happen. Maybe the Time Lord hadn't realised it, but it had just shown the yautja exactly where to start looking for it again, and as it happened it really wasn't far away from them at all.

Setg'inte turned to the young yautja accompanying him, a new blood named Nehtaun. The other yautja that had been with them had been killed during the fight with the serpents, but Nehtaun had not only survived but had claimed an impressive number of skulls as trophies. The yautja had completed three _kainde amedha chiva_ previouslybut had never before hunted _pyode amedha_ , and he was just as eager for the blood of the ooman as Setg'inte was for that of the Time Lord. That suited Setg'inte just fine. Nehtaun could have the ooman, but he would take the Time Lord for himself. "No need to search anymore," he told the younger yautja, "It's at the serpent's prison."

Nehtaun made a few clicking sounds of eager aggression. "Well, let's get after it," he said, "Before the others get there first."

Setg'inte just growled back in response as they changed direction and began to run towards where the serpent queen was kept.

-oOo-

As Tevo approached the pit a sudden thought occurred to her and she felt a rush of panic. What if the yautja had acidic blood too and all its weapons had melted? That's what had happened to Adrick's weapons after she'd shot the xenomorph that had killed him, but she didn't know if yautja bled acid too. Just as she reached the edge of the pit though she saw the phosphorescent green blood of the yautja was soaking very unreactively into the floor, and she breathed a sigh of relief. She'd been lucky so far: she hadn't even heard the sounds of any xenomorphs other than the ones coming from somewhere underground, and all she had to do now was collect the yautja's weapons and get back to the Doctor.

She ran over to it and knelt down to see what kind of weapons it had, and she noticed it had one of the strange hand held guns she'd seen in the armoury strapped to its belt. She took that off it and then looked at what else it was equipped with: something that looked like a kind of extending spear, long blades attached to gauntlets Tevo knew she wouldn't be able to wear and a shoulder cannon that she wouldn't be able to control without its mask. It was frustrating how few of its weapons looked like they would be any use to her, but she noticed it also seemed to have what looked like a series of grenades clipped onto a strap that was slung across its chest, and she was just trying to detach them when she saw a ripple of movement in the corner of her eye. She glanced up, and felt a wave of fear wash over her as she saw another strange ripple in the air against the backdrop of trees. A yautja. No, wait. It was worse. There were two of them.

Damn it, she should have stayed put. Now she was going to have to face off two yautja, why did she even…No, she wasn't going to let herself panic. She was probably being targeted right now and she had to make a move quickly. She was armed: she could fight back.

Tevo raised the gun she was holding and fired. A burst of hot plasma shot towards the two hazy figures even as she began to run in the opposite direction back up the sides of the pit, and the plasma from the yautja's shoulder cannons just narrowly missed her as she reached the top. She glanced behind her in time to see the two yautja deactivate their camouflage and become visible, but she could also see that her own shot had gone wide.

She paused to watch them for a moment as they both crossed to the body of the dead yautja and knelt beside it for a moment, but it wasn't long before one of the yautja looked up at Tevo again and began to run towards her. She began to back off again, but just had time to see the other yautja wasn't coming after her but instead was heading towards the hatch door. _But the Doctor's down there,_ she thought, her mind racing, _if the yautja goes in after him he'll be trapped._ But as the other yautja quickly approached her she knew she wouldn't be able to do anything to help him now. Even with her new weapon she didn't have a chance of taking on two of them. Until she thought of a better plan, her only option was to run.

-oOo-

The corridor the Doctor was running down was much longer than he'd expected, and he already knew he wasn't going to be back in the ten minutes he'd promised Tevo. The sound of the xenomorph was echoing off the metal walls, making it seem much closer than it actually was, and just as he was beginning to wonder how much further it would be he saw a steel door at the far end of the corridor. He had his sonic screwdriver out and ready as he reached it, but hesitated before opening it. It was impossible to not be scared at the thought of what was on the other side, but he knew he had to do this.

He could hear the sound of the xenomorph screeching, and as he pointed the sonic screwdriver at the door it slid open with a mechanical hiss that was almost drowned out by the sudden increase in volume of the xenomorph's cries. The room beyond was still dimly lit, but it was enough for the Doctor to make out the shape of the xenomorph chained in the middle of the floor. It's front legs were manacled to a steel bar that was suspended from the high ceiling by heavy chains, and its rear legs were chained down to the floor so that it was completely unable to move from the position it was kept it. He could also see the machine that was attached to its ovipositor and heard the mechanism clunking and whirring as it harvested the eggs and delivered them to the incubation chambers at the back of the room.

For a few moments he didn't move, but just stood in the doorway watching it. Even though he knew the yautja had no right to keep it here like this, he was finding it difficult to have any sympathy. The creature was hideous and lethal and killed things in the most brutal way possible, and a small part of him couldn't help but think that he didn't mind it being chained up like this as long as that prevented it attacking him. But he knew it was still wrong. He had to go through with this and set it free, even if he was terrified to get any closer to it.

The xenomorph hadn't noticed him straight away and instead just continued to shriek in pain as it struggled against its bonds, but then it seemed to notice the door was open and it looked down at the Doctor and gave a vicious hiss. The Doctor stared right back at it. It was much bigger than a normal xenomorph, he realised; at least twice the size of a drone. That really wasn't doing anything to help him stop being so scared. Even though he just wished he could just run back out and lock the door firmly behind him he took a slow step forwards, his legs feeling leaden as they seemingly didn't want to obey him. The xenomorph hissed at him again. It seemed uncertain as to whether or not he was one of its captors, but it was certainly wary of him.

He stopped just a couple of feet in front of it and it looked down at him in silence, as if weighing him up. He stared up at it, thinking just how hideous it actually was, but then it snarled at him and he took a step back, realising he might well be in range of its second set of jaws. It looked like it wanted to attack him for a moment, but then went quiet again and its head drooped in a manner that was unmistakably sad and defeated. So it had worked it out, hopefully. It wasn't going to attack him. Now he could do what he needed to do.

As he crossed to where the xenomorph's rear legs were chained to the floor he let out a shuddering sigh of relief. Despite knowing that the xenomorph wouldn't have been able to do much to attack him while chained up like this, that had still been the most nerve-wracking thing he'd had to do since arriving on this planet, but he knew what he was about to do that was even more dangerous. He was about to set it free, and if it changed its mind…No, it wouldn't change its mind. If he was going to do this he had to believe he was safe from the xenomorph and that this was going to work.

He activated his sonic screwdriver and pointed it at the manacles around the xenomorph's legs so that the locks opened with a click and the manacles went loose. The xenomorph suddenly shrieked again as it realised what was happening, and it kicked out with its rear legs as it tried to break free. The Doctor scrambled out of the way and ran back round to the front of the xenomorph again. "Just wait a second!" he shouted up at it as he raised his sonic screwdriver to point at the bonds around its arms, and then they came free too and the xenomorph collapsed to the floor on all fours. It only took a second for it to recover and then it raised its head again and leapt towards the Doctor. He desperately scrambled backwards, terrified that in fact now it was about to attack him. As his back made contact with the wall he felt another surge of panic as he realised he had nowhere to run. He wondered what would happen to Tevo if he died now, and he realised she'd probably never get off this planet alive. So he'd failed her. He may have been able to keep Rose alive, but Ailyn was going to die…

He couldn't stop the worst possible thoughts flooding into his mind as he faced the xenomorph, convinced that that horrendous face with its hideous jaws was going to be the last thing he would ever see, but then in paused in its attack for a moment and simply looked at him. He watched it nervously, desperately hoping it was going to back off, but then it moved its combed head closer to him and seemed to be smelling him. He pressed himself back against the wall in a desperate attempt just to get further away from it. If this was any other situation, any other species, he might have tried to negotiate, but he knew against a xenomorph talking would do no good. His hearts were beating so hard it was almost painful, and he could feel the xenomorph in his chest responding to the movement as it started to push against his ribcage. So it seemed that he was going to be killed by either the chestburster or the queen. How had this all managed to go so wrong?

He heard the queen give a quiet hiss just inches from his ear and he closed his eyes, wishing desperately that it would just go away, but then he sensed a flurry movement in front of him and opened his eyes again in time to see the xenomorph scrambling away. He watched as it scaled the wall directly opposite him and then reached the top left hand corner of the room, where he saw it punch its way through a wide vent he hadn't realised had been there. Daylight flooded into the room as the xenomorph escaped to the outside world above, and the Doctor heaved a long, shuddering sigh and looked back down at the floor. He pressed a hand to his chest and breathed deeply again as he felt the movement of the chestburster die down. That had been close. But there wasn't time to dwell on it now; he could reflect on how lucky he'd been later. Right now he had to get back to Tevo.

He turned back towards the door he'd entered through, but then stopped as he saw the figure that was now silhouetted against the dim yellow light spilling through the doorway. Fear began to grip him again as he recognised the unmistakable shape of the yautja watching him. Sinister clicking noises sounded from behind its mask as it looked at him, seemingly enjoying the sight of him so scared and at its mercy. The yautja growled. "Did you think this would work, Time Lord?"

The Doctor met its gaze, almost resigned to the fact that it was going to kill him but still trying to think of a way out of this. "What now, Setg'inte?" he asked, addressing the yautja by its name. "The queen's gone, the eggs you have stored won't last indefinitely, you may as well just stop all this now."

Even behind the mask the yautja seemed to be glaring at him. "We can recapture the queen."

"Oh, but is it worth it, though?" the Doctor responded, trying to keep Setg'inte talking long enough for him to think of something. "The effort it would take? The number of you who would die? Most of your people don't feel the need to do what you've been doing to get prey, so why does your clan have to be any different?"

The yautja almost seemed amused by that question. "Because we are better than them," he responded simply, "We only hunt the best prey, and you may be pleased to know that you have been the best of them all. But you are still prey, all the same, and you will die."

"Are you sure about that?" the Doctor said, keeping an eye on Setg'inte's shoulder cannon and raising his sonic screwdriver to decalibrate it again, but the yautja just laughed.

"Are you really going to use your sonic toy on me again, Time Lord?" he asked mockingly, "That would be most dishonourable of you. As you have been such a good prey so far I'm prepared to give you chance for the most honourable death possible. Why don't you fight me _jehdin-jehdin,_ one-on-one?"

The Doctor just stared at him, not really liking the sound of that. "But I'm not even armed."

"I'll give you a weapon," Setg'inte responded, taking his extending spear off his belt and tossing it to the Doctor who caught it one handed.

The Doctor looked down at the weapon, not wanting to use it but realising he had little choice. He put his sonic screwdriver away and then pressed the button on the spear so that it sprung up to its full length, before looking back to Setg'inte who was taking off his mask.

The yautja pulled away the wires connecting it to his electronic weaponry and then removed the mask from his face, flaring his mandibles as he did so in a sign of aggression. The Doctor pulled a face when he did that, thinking that yautja really were every bit as ugly as xenomorphs. Setg'inte then removed his shoulder cannon and placed that to one side, before pressing a switch on his gauntlets so that his double wrist blades sprung up, leaving them as the only weapon he would fight with. The yautja growled at the Doctor as a challenge, and the Doctor glared right back.

"Alright," he said, "I'll fight you, but I should warn you I've defeated a Sycorax before."

"So have I," Setg'inte responded, gesturing at a piece of armour on his chest.

"Ah," said the Doctor, realising it was in fact decorated with the front half of a Sycorax skull. "Well, did you do it with a satsuma?"

Setg'inte snarled menacingly. "Don't mock me, Time Lord."

"I'm not!" the Doctor responded, "Seriously, I once…"

He didn't get chance to finish before Setg'inte had rushed forward, growling as he raised his left wrist blade and tried to bring it slashing down on the Doctor. Instinctively, the Doctor raised the spear to block it, and then took a step back out of the range of the blades as he launched a counter attack with the end of the spear. The fight had begun.


	16. Winning and Losing

Tevo found she was running uphill to get away from the yautja, and even though she'd fired several plasma shots at it, it had its camouflage back in place again and she kept missing. The yautja, on the other hand, seemed to be getting closer and closer to hitting her each time, and she was beginning to wonder if it was missing on purpose, just to torment her. As she continued to run she now found the trees had become more sparse as she was running over an uneven and rocky floor, and she wished she'd gone in a direction where it wouldn't be quite so difficult to not fall over. It was too late to turn around now though, and glancing up ahead she saw a wall of rocks that rose up higher to the left of her and went steeply down on her right. She could hear a trickle of water running through it and realised that the steep decline on the right must lead to the river. It would be best to go up then if she wanted to avoid becoming stuck between the yautja and the water, even if it slowed her down. As she reached the rocks she began to climb upwards, but just as she got a good grip on one of the stones to lift herself up a shot of plasma hit the rocks just a few feet off to her right and the stones crumbled away. She turned back briefly to glance at the blurred shape of the camouflaged yautja behind her and shot it a glare. It was enjoying this. Well, if it wasn't going to get on and kill her she thought she'd come up with a way to get back at it.

She found another grip on the stones and began to climb as quickly as she could towards the top. It wasn't a completely vertical incline, but it was still steep and she found it difficult to go very fast. The yautja reached the bottom of the rocks just as Tevo was about three quarters from the top, and as she glanced down she saw it had once again deactivated it camouflage and was navigating the slope with much more agility than she was. It wasn't using its plasma cannon, seemingly confident that it would be able to catch up with her and kill her by hand, and with a rush of terror Tevo realised that unless she got a move on that was exactly what would happen. With a desperate surge of speed she scrambled over the top of the rock wall, and was taken a little by surprise as she now found that the patch of woodland she was in was littered with about ten or so broken metal crates. They appeared to have been broken open on impact as if they'd dropped from the sky, and Tevo recognised them as some of the cargo that had been on board the _Revenant._ She remembered the electronic lock on the cargo hold had failed when they'd hit the atmosphere, and some of the containers on board had ended up falling to the planet below as the turbulence had forced the loading hatch open. Did this mean she was back anywhere near where they'd started then? Was the Doctor's ship close by?

There wasn't much time for her to think about it before she turned her attention back to the yautja that was advancing up the wall. She began to raise the plasma gun, but as it saw what she was about to do it suddenly fired its own cannon and she was forced to duck down again. Keeping low on the floor, she pointed the gun over the top of the wall and fired down at the yautja, but she could see that even when it was trying to climb up some steep rocks it was still able to move effortlessly out of the way. Well, that didn't matter. She wasn't necessarily trying to hit _it._

Tevo fired the gun again, this time aiming at the rocks just above where the yautja was two thirds up the wall. The stones came loose and she saw the yautja slip back down slightly as it lost its grip on the wall. She fired again, hoping to blast enough of the rocks that it was knocked all the way back down to the floor, but as more of the stones gave way she saw it look up at her and growl. She fired at it once again, but the way it was looking up at her was unnerving. It was gripping tightly onto the wall, its legs coiled like a cat ready to pounce, and even as the plasma jet shot towards it it suddenly kicked off powerfully from the wall to try and jump the final third of the way towards her.

It had at least three metres to go and Tevo never would have guessed it was capable of such a jump, but she saw it was quickly hurtling towards her and looked like it was going to make the full distance. She leapt back from the edge of the slope and brought up the plasma gun, ready to fire again, but she never got chance before there was the sudden sound of more rocks giving way. Out of nowhere a xenomorph appeared to launch itself from somewhere beneath her and grabbed hold of the yautja, causing both aliens to fall several metres back down to the floor below.

Tevo stared down at it in shock, realising it had sprung out from behind the wall. Did that mean there was a room or something behind there? She watched for a few moments as the yautja tried to fight the xenomorph off, but it appeared to have been badly injured by the fall and the xenomorph quickly overpowered it. This xenomorph looked different from the others, Tevo noted: it was a lot bigger, for one thing, and instead of a smooth dome it had an elaborate comb on his head. Wait, was this one the queen? If so, that meant the Doctor had managed to free it, so he must be somewhere through the hole the xenomorph had punched in the wall. Tevo was just about to begin climbing down again to try and get to it when she heard another xenomorph screech from somewhere behind her, and she ducked down just as it jumped over her head to fall to the floor at the bottom of the wall. The queen suddenly turned its head at that point to look up at her, and gave a hiss as it saw she was responsible for the drone having just taken the ten metre fall to be dashed against the rocks at the bottom. It began to run towards her and took a giant leap to begin ascending the wall.

Tevo backed off, deciding it would be best to run. She may have a plasma gun, but that thing was bloody huge and she didn't think the small handheld firearm would be much use. But even as she turned round she saw more xenomorphs closing in on her, and she realised she was surrounded again. She raised the plasma gun to fire two shots at the xenomorphs, hoping she'd be able to blast them out of the way, but even though they were knocked back by the impact it wasn't enough to completely incapacitate them. She heard another shriek behind her as the queen reached the top of the wall, and she turned again and fired another wild shot at it, pure terror gripping her as she realised she was surrounded and completely alone. She felt certain that at any moment at least one of the xenomorphs would sink its claws and teeth into her, but then she heard the sound of a much larger plasma cannon from somewhere in the forest and she glanced away from the queen to see two of the other xenos be thrown back several metres by the impact from a plasma burst. She saw the shape of a yautja emerging through the trees, efficiently dispatching of the xenomorphs that were swarming around as it approached. Tevo thought she saw its gaze rest on her for a moment as it reached the top of the slope, but then it looked past her towards the queen xenomorph. Tevo then looked back at the queen to see that it in turn had looked away from her and was now watching the yautja. The two aliens stared and each other for a moment, and having both decided which was the better prey, the queen leapt over Tevo and they began to fight.

Desperate to get out of the way, Tevo quickly climbed back over the top of the wall and began to lower herself down towards the hole. She could see the dim yellow glow of the fluorescent lights the yautja used on the other side, and she realised that this must have been where the queen had been kept. _That had better mean the Doctor's through here,_ she thought as she reached the hole and lowered herself through.

-oOo-

Setg'inte brought up his right wrist blade again to slash at the Doctor, who ducked down just as the blade sliced through the air inches above his head. Even though the Doctor was quick and light on his feet, Setg'inte had years of training that he was using to his advantage, and he wasn't struggling at all to keep going with the fight, whereas the Doctor was tiring quickly. They'd only been fighting for a few minutes, but the Doctor already felt that even that was too long. After all the running through the forest and the energy that he was using up to fight the chestburster he just wanted this to be over with as quickly as possible, but he knew that unless he kept going the quickest possible result would end with him being dead.

He dodged another attack from the wrist blades and tried to counter it, but once again Setg'inte efficiently parried and launched back with a riposte that forced him to step back. The yautja seemed to be getting bored with the fight now, tiring of how slow and predictable the Doctor's moves were becoming, and as the Doctor tried to jab at him with the spear again Setg'inte sidestepped out of the way and grabbed hold of the shaft, wrenching it forward so that the Doctor stumbled as he lost his grip on the weapon.

The Doctor felt himself fall forwards, too tired to manage to keep his balance as the weapon was violently torn away from him, and he realised that he was well in range for the yautja to fight him hand to hand. If it came to that, he knew he didn't stand a chance. There was just time for him to see Setg'inte retract his wrist blades, and he didn't have chance to think why before he felt the yautja's hand grab onto his arm and he was violently spun round and forced down onto the floor. He was lying on his front and he could feel the Setg'inte's hand pressing down hard on the back of his skull, keeping the side of his face pressed firmly to the floor and preventing him from getting up. With a sense of horror he realised that this was how the yautja made trophy kills: rip off the head and then tear out the spine while it was still attached to the skull. Even at the thought of it he suddenly felt sick. Somehow he didn't think he'd be able to regenerate from that, but he hoped that at least it would be over with quickly.

He screwed his eyes shut and was waiting for it to come, but then he felt himself being turned over onto his back and the yautja's hand moved to close around his throat. As his airway was restricted he looked up at the yautja's face; its mandibles flared in an expression of victory. He saw Setg'inte take a small hunting knife from his belt and held it close to the Doctor's face, seeming to mock him as he said, "Best not waste that prey." The Doctor didn't give much thought to what that meant before he shut his eyes and the world went black.

Setg'inte laughed quietly to himself as he saw the Time Lord black out, and then took his hand away from its throat to rip away the layers of fabric covering its chest. He'd defeated it fairly and it was his rightful prize, but the serpent inside it would make an even more worthwhile prey. It seemed that perhaps the serpent needed a little assistance in hatching on this occasion, but Setg'inte could give it that.

He leaned over the Time Lord's chest and pressed the knife to its skin, ready to make an incision. He was still too busy gloating about his victory to notice the movement as the Time Lord slipped a hand into its pocket, and as Setg'inte flared his mandibles again in anticipation of what he was about to do he was taken completely by surprise by a sudden movement from the Time Lord. He felt his hand containing the knife be quickly knocked away while simultaneously something was slammed into the narrow opening behind his mandibles. Setg'inte went completely still for a few seconds, blinking in shock as he realised he was staring into the face of the Time Lord, which had suddenly sat up and now seemed to be smirking at him. How had it done that? He'd completely cut off its airway, but yet now he felt something rough was lodged in his throat and he was the one who couldn't breathe.

"Respiratory bypass," the Doctor said with a grin. "I guess that was one thing you didn't know about my species."

Setg'inte tried to growl but no sound came out. The Doctor pushed the yautja off of him so that it rolled onto its side on the floor, still desperately trying to breathe. The Doctor stood up and brushed himself down, trying to straighten out his torn clothes. "A sycorax with a satsuma and a yautja with a pinecone, that's not bad going," he said as he stood over Setg'inte, "Although I'm surprised your species never evolved mouths that you can close properly. Having mandibles is all very well, but nothing beats a proper set of lips and teeth if somebody's going to try and ram something down your throat."

Setg'inte just continued to glare up at him and the Doctor sighed. "Well, I suppose that's another thing the masks are good for. But anyway, you now have two options. You can agree to stop bringing humans here just so you can infect them with xenomorph larvae, and I'll give you a good hard thump on the back and you'll be fine. Or you can insist on carrying on with what you've been doing and I'll let you choke, in which case you'll be dead so you won't be able to keep doing it anyway. So I think that's only one option, really."

Setg'inte couldn't answer but the furious look in his eyes spoke for itself.

The Doctor sighed again. "Oh, come on, Setg'inte," he said, "What's so honourable about choking to death on a pinecone anyway?"

Setg'inte wasn't able to respond, but he didn't have to as the Doctor suddenly gasped and pressed a hand to his chest. The chestburster was trying to break out again, and as he sank to his knees the Doctor realised that the only pineseeds he'd had left were now lodged in the yautja's throat. _It's probably too late now anyway,_ he thought bitterly, _I didn't get back to Ailyn in time. Why does it have to end like this? I stop the yautja from harvesting humans as prey and now I'm going to die anyway._

It wasn't a sharp stabbing pain like it had been before, but instead there was a dull pressure behind his ribcage as the xenomorph seemed to be trying to force its way out. The air seemed to be slowly being forced out of his lungs as if the xenomorph was growing inside him, and he realised that the longer this took the more it was going to hurt. He was becoming light headed now as he actually was deprived of air, and he hoped that he blacked out in time for it to not hurt quite so much. He thought he heard someone calling his name as he sank to the floor, but all he could see was Setg'inte who was lying across from him. The yautja was suffocating too, but somehow still seemed to be laughing at him, as if satisfied that they were both going to die together.

As the first stab of pain suddenly tore through his chest, the Doctor's head lolled back on the floor as this time he actually did pass out.

-oOo-

It took a few seconds for Tevo's eyes to adjust to the new dim light inside the room, but as her eyesight finally adapted she realised she was several metres above the floor of a room where something had quite clearly been chained to floor until recently. Looking down, she was able to make out the shapes of two figures near the floor level entrance to the room. She could tell the one lying on the floor was clearly a yautja, and as she realised the one still standing was the Doctor she felt a sense of relief wash over her. It didn't last long, however, as she saw him clutch at his chest and sink to the floor. "Doctor!" she shouted, realising what was happening. She had to get to him quickly, but she was several metres off the floor of the room and the wall seemed too smooth to be able to gradually ease her way down.

Looking in front of her, she saw a chain suspended from the ceiling which must have previously been used to bind the xenomorph. She didn't have time to think about what she was doing, but instead just leapt from where was perched in the hole in the wall towards it, grabbing onto the chain and sliding down the few metres to the floor. Once she got there she began to head straight for the Doctor, unclipping the bioteleport from her belt as she ran. She only cast the briefest of glances at the yautja, barely taking time to feel any shock at the crab-like face she'd never seen before, and instead knelt down next to the Doctor. He was unconscious, but his clothes were torn and she could see the movement of the chestburster beneath his skin. Knowing she had no time to lose, she pressed the bioteleport to his chest and pulled the trigger.

With a sudden gasp he sat bolt upright again, almost as if he'd received an electric shock. He grabbed onto her and took a few deep breaths for air, and as she tossed the bioteleport to one side she gave a giddy laugh of relief and wrapped her arms around him. "Oh, thank God, I thought I was too late then."

He only seemed to return the hug half-heartedly, not really quite with it. "Ailyn," he gasped, looking at her. She'd come after him. He'd told her not to but she'd come after him, just like Rose had done…

But no, he couldn't think about that right now. There was something else, but he wasn't too sure what…His head was still a little hazy and there was a throbbing ache in his chest from where the mass of the xenomorph had been removed, but then he remembered. "Ailyn, where is it?" he said urgently as he tried to stand up.

She helped him to his feet but was staring at him in confusion. "What?"

He looked like he was thinking quickly for a couple more seconds, and then burst out with, "Oh no, it's at the port dock," before beginning to run back down the corridor that led to the hatch.

Tevo ran after him, shouting a rather sarcastic, "You're welcome," at his back.

He didn't respond to that, but as he reached the hatch door and opened it he was babbling an explanation. "I've been bursting with regeneration energy for over two hours to try and fight that thing off. As soon as whatever was obstructing my regeneration cycle was removed I should have started regenerating, but I'm not. All the energy's been absorbed by the xenomorph instead. Most larvae wouldn't survive the teleportation, but that was a fully mature Time Lord xenomorph larva full of regeneration energy and I need to know what's happened to it," he said as he climbed out of the hatch, Tevo following very closely behind him.

They were practically alongside each other as they began to run back towards the bunker. "You think it survived?" Tevo asked in horror.

"Yes," he answered, "And the larvae mature very quickly once they've hatched. In less than an hour we could have a fully grown Time Lord xenomorph running around this planet and we need to stop it."

"You mean kill it?" she said, astounded that this suggestion was coming from him, but he didn't answer as they reached the bunker to see the door had been burst open from the inside. The Doctor stared at it in horror, whereas Tevo just muttered, "Fuck."

The Doctor glanced at her. "Yes," he said, "Quite."


	17. D'yeka

From somewhere behind them they suddenly heard the sound of a xenomorph shriek not too far away. They both exchanged glances, and then the Doctor held up his sonic screwdriver and looked at Tevo with a worried expression.

"It says the Tardis is this way."

A sense of horror settled on her as she realised where he was pointing. "You mean _towards_ that thing?"

He nodded. "Yes."

"Well, I have a gun," she said, holding up the yautja's plasma rifle.

He looked at it with a grim expression. "Well, I never thought I'd say this, but good. Just this once I think we've got a good reason to use it. Now come on!"

They started to run again, trying to avoid the exact location the shrieks were coming from, but as they were running through the forest they saw several bursts of light from three yautja's plasma cannons all firing at once. Through the trees they could make out the shape of the queen xenomorph, and it appeared that the three yautja that were left alive were all trying to fight it. None of them appeared to have noticed the Doctor and Tevo, concentrating as they were on the larger prey, but as the Doctor and Tevo tried to run round the fight more xenomorphs appeared through the trees to come to the aid of the queen. Tevo fired at them with the plasma gun, but the noise seemed to attract the attention of one of the yautja which suddenly fired a blast from its own shoulder cannon in their direction. They both ducked down as the plasma collided with the xenomorphs in front of them, but if they were going to keep running now then the only direction they had to go in was back towards the yautja.

The yautja that had fired the plasma burst continued to watch them for a couple of seconds, but then the queen shrieked behind it and it turned again to go back to fighting the bigger threat. The Doctor grabbed Tevo's hand and tried to pull her in the direction they needed to go in, but in trying to avoid the xenomorphs they found they were heading back towards where the yautja were fighting the queen. Tevo raised the plasma gun to point in the general direction of the melee of yautja and xenos, hoping to blast a way through, but just as she was about to fire the Doctor pushed her hand back down again. She glared at him, once again unable to understand why he'd stopped her, but he quickly explained. "Don't get involved! The xenomorphs are trying to help the queen, and the yautja are only interested in fighting xenos. If you don't fire at them they'll ignore us."

As he said that a horde of xenomorphs swarmed right past them to attack the yautja, but then Tevo raised the gun again to fire at something behind him, and he turned to see she'd just blasted a xenomorph that had been about to attack him. He turned to her and saw she had an eyebrow raised. "Are you sure about that?"

"Well, they'll mostly ignore us…hopefully," he replied, "but it's best if we just keep going." They both set off again, the Doctor leading the way in the direction of the Tardis, but he was forced to stop as the body of a yautja was flung across his path by the queen xenomorph. Both he and Tevo looked back towards the queen, and just as it gave a snarl and seemed to be about to run towards them one of the remaining yautja appeared from behind it – apparently having leapt from half way up a tree – and buried one of its wrist blades in the xenomorph's skull. The queen shrieked in pain and seemed to be trying to throw the yautja off, but the metal of the blade was resistant to the xeno's acidic blood and remained lodged deep in its skull. The queen staggered around for a few moments and the Doctor and Tevo dived out of the way to avoid the spray of acid, but then the huge xenomorph suddenly went rigid and collapsed to the floor.

The yautja that had killed it straightened up, just taking a couple of seconds to look suitably smug with its kill, but then it seemed to remember there were other xenomorphs still around and it prepared to fight again. As it looked around it suddenly noticed the Doctor and Tevo standing nearby, and its shoulder cannon pivoted to point at them. This particular yautja seemed to be on a high of the yautja equivalent of adrenaline from just having defeated a queen, and it seemed to be eager to add human and Time Lord skulls to its collection. As it looked at them the Doctor thought he recognised it as the one called Guan'dlak, but then he and Tevo were ducking out of the way again as more shots of plasma headed in their direction.

Tevo tried to fire a shot back, but very quickly the yautja became preoccupied again as more xenomorphs swarmed forward to attack it, and she decided it would be best to just keep running and not waste time. But even as she thought that she turned and saw that the other remaining yautja was now standing in front of them, ready to fire its plasma caster at them. Tevo looked at the Doctor, who had his sonic screwdriver out and ready to divert the plasma shot again, but before he needed to use it another xenomorph had launched itself from the trees towards the yautja. The yautja was knocked to the floor, but quickly threw the xenomorph off and extended its wrist blades to slash at its chest. The metal made contact and sent a spray of acidic blood onto the floor, but even as the xenomorph shrieked in pain the wound suddenly began to glow yellow and the xenomorph launched itself at the yautja again as the damaged cells were renewed.

The Doctor and Tevo both exchanged horrified glances with each other, realising that this must be the Time Lord xenomorph. "How did it manage to get so bloody big so fast?" Tevo shouted as they began to run away again.

"With all the regeneration energy it's absorbed I'm just surprised it's not bigger!" the Doctor replied as they finally managed to get away from where the yautja were fighting the xenomorphs. They continued to run as fast as they could in the direction of the Tardis, but the shrieks of the xenomorphs appeared to be fading into the distance behind them. It seemed that both of the alien species were more interested in fighting each other than in killing them.

They were running uphill again, and Tevo recognised the patch of woodland where she'd seen the shattered crates earlier. It was a little disorientating, as she was pretty sure she'd come from a different direction earlier and the wall of rocks appeared to be on the opposite side now, but she definitely recognised it. Not that that was really important, as long as they were going the right way, but as she turned to the Doctor to check that they were in fact heading towards the Tardis she saw that he had in fact stopped.

"Doctor, what is it?" she shouted at him, "Come on, we need to keep moving!"

He just continued to stare at the crates around him. "This is the cargo from the _Revenant,_ isn't it?"

She nodded at him in exasperation. "Yes, it fell out when we hit the atmosphere, but why is that important? We've got to keep going."

He didn't really seem to be paying attention to her. "I remember this," he said, almost as if he was talking to himself, "You said it was a pharmaceutical shipment, didn't you?"

Tevo just glared at him in frustration, trying to second guess what he was thinking. "Yes, the ship was supposed to be delivering PharmGalactic supplies to the Earth Colonies, until we ended up crashing here. There isn't time to recover any of it, but like I said, it's not like there's any cancer drugs or anything. They'll find a replacement supplier so can we please just keep going?"

He shook his head. "I wasn't thinking of recovering it," he said as he began to look through the contents of the shattered crates, and Tevo glanced nervously behind him to see if any of the xenomorphs had followed them yet. She was relieved to see they hadn't, but she still couldn't understand why he was wasting time.

"Then what the hell are you doing?"

"I've remembered what happened after the _Revenant_ went missing," he said, not really answering the question as he continued to look through the crates with a sense of urgency. "It's all bogged down in loads of boring technicalities, but this must have been what led to the 'Greatest Lawsuit of the Millennium', as the historians call it. I didn't realise at first, but this must have been what it was all about. PharmGalactic sued Tiber for lack of care, Tiber countersued for breach of contract, they countersued again, so Tiber then sued the company who made the ship for having a faulty warp drive, and it all ended in an insurance payout that was the biggest in the galaxy for five hundred years. Over ten million Earth dollars of medicine went missing plus the cost of the ship, and they had to import supplies to the Pleiadean colonies all the way from Spica. But you're right, it's just medicine cabinet stuff: paracetamol, ibuprofen, dopramazine, antihistamines…and aspirin!" he suddenly exclaimed, leaping back from the crate he'd just been looking through.

Tevo glared at him. "Would you care to explain me properly what the hell you're on about? Or are you going to tell me that after the xenomorphs have caught up with us?"

He looked up at her. "No time," he said, as he reached into the crate with the sleeve of his coat pulled over his hand. She watched him take out a bottle of aspirin and held it so that the fabric of his coat prevented him from touching it directly.

She just stared at him. "You are completely fucking insane, has anyone ever told you that?"

"Not in those exact words, no," he said, picking up another bottle. "But this is something I've got to do."

She looked utterly perplexed. "Do what? Overdose on aspirin?"

"Not _me,_ " he said, "But there's no time to explain now. Have you still got that key to the Tardis I gave you?"

She nodded. "Of course."

"Good. Then keep running in that direction, it isn't far to go now. You'll see a little blue box in a clearing, that's the Tardis. Go inside and wait for me there."

Tevo still looked completely confused. "And what exactly are you going to be doing?"

"I'll explain later," he said, beginning to head off back in the direction they'd come in, "But you have to keep going."

"And what if anything happens to you?"

"The Tardis will deploy its emergency evacuation procedure and divert to the nearest safe planet, but the only way that could happen is _if_ something happens to me, and it's not going to."

She didn't look convinced. "You said that last time."

"Still here, aren't I?" he responded. "Please, Ailyn, just trust me. If I don't do this something might happen that could have devastating consequences for the entire galaxy, but it's too dangerous to do it with you around."

She looked indecisive for a moment longer, and then nodded. "Alright. But you had better come back and explain this to me properly."

"I will," he said, turning and running back in the direction he'd come in, and even as Tevo realised that was exactly what he'd said last time she began to run again in the direction of the Tardis.

-oOo-

In truth, the Doctor was scared as hell about doing this, but he knew he didn't have any other choice. If the ordinary xenomorphs stayed trapped on this planet then they wouldn't be harming anybody, provided nobody landed a ship here for whatever reason, but the Time Lord xenomorph was another matter. If was stronger than the others, it had the power to regenerate, and it was _smarter._ There was a very real chance that it might find a way to get off this planet, especially if it came across any of the technology that the yautja had left behind, and if it found a way to do that and spread to other planets… well, the consequences of that didn't even bear thinking about.

He wanted there to be an alternative to what he was about to do, but he knew there wasn't. The Time Lord xenomorph was a remarkable creature: it had so many abilities that went far beyond any xenomorph or Time Lord on their own and he partly wished he could have chance to see more of it, but he knew that wasn't possible. Even with the Time Lord DNA it was still a xenomorph, and it still had the basic xenomorph instinct to kill and produce more of its own kind. It had the potential to be amazing, but it also had the potential to bring destruction to the entire galaxy, and for that reason he knew it would have to die just like the yautja had intended.

The thought of that left a rather bitter taste in his mouth. This creature had only ever existed for the purpose of being hunted and killed, and as much as he detested the whole principle behind that he knew the xenomorph couldn't be allowed to live. As much as he didn't want to, he knew he was going to have to be the one to kill it. He'd destroyed the other Time Lords for the good of the universe, and now he was going to have to destroy this xenomorph version of a Time Lord for the exact same reason. A rather dark part of his mind was already taunting him with it: _I've already killed all the others, it makes sense that I'm going to kill this one too._

He almost wished he could think like Tevo and not care about killing something that had tried to kill him, but his mind just didn't work like that. Part of him wished that he could give it chance to live: this species was unique and amazing its own way, but it was still just too dangerous. If he let it survive then he'd be putting every other species in the galaxy at risk and there was no way he could do that.

He'd known he was going to have to kill it straight away from the moment Tevo had teleported it out of him. He'd even been vaguely aware of it before that point, ever since he'd woken up after being facehugged, but he hadn't thought about _how_ he would actually do it until he'd run past the crates with Tevo and suddenly everything had clicked into place. Time Lords were severely allergic to aspirin: allergic enough that ingesting it would prevent regeneration and even touching it was dangerous, and he hoped that the same applied to Time Lord xenomorphs. The only problem was the risk it carried for him as well, and even though he thought he might be overdoing it a little, holding the aspirin through his coat even when it was in a glass bottle, he couldn't afford for anything to go wrong now.

As he approached the site where the yautja were fighting the xenomorphs he could see through the trees that there was one final yautja standing, and then it too was knocked to the ground by the Time Lord xenomorph. The xeno had, as he'd predicted, grown even bigger in the past few minutes since he'd seen it. All the excess regeneration energy that hadn't been able to take immediate effect seemed to have generated a backlog and was causing the xeno's cells to multiply rapidly, making it grow very quickly. All the more reason that he had to stop it.

There was just time for him to see the yautja activate something on its wrist console before being decapitated by the xenomorph, and just as the Doctor realised what that meant he flung himself to the ground as that patch of forest exploded. He was just out of range of the immediate explosion, but he still felt the force of it as a rush of hot air blasted past him, and he kept his head down for a few moments longer before looking up. As he raised his head he saw that where the trees had been in front of him was now a crater littered with the skeletons of xenomorphs, their flesh having been vaporized.

The Doctor got to his feet again and stared at the destruction in front of him for a moment, wondering if perhaps it wouldn't be him who killed the Time Lord xeno after all, but then he saw that one of the xenomorph skeletons was glowing yellow and the shredded pieces of flesh still attached to it seemed to be rebuilding. It could regenerate from _that?_ If it really was that indestructible then it was even more dangerous that he thought. Hopefully his plan would still work, although as the xenomorph continued to regenerate that was becoming much less certain.

He stood and watched in a mixture of horror and awe as the skeleton became engulfed in a cloud of bright yellow light, and as it cleared he saw that the xenomorph had fully regenerated. Despite his fear, he still couldn't help but be completely awestruck. Regenerating from next to nothing…that was _incredible._ The xenomorph did seem to have changed its appearance somewhat, as Time Lords did when they regenerated, and instead of having a smooth domed head this one's seemed to be ridged and was slightly more pointed at the back. It was still just as dangerous as ever though, and as it looked around at the wreckage of the forest it seemed to be searching for something else to kill, before its gaze rested on the only other living thing in sight. The Doctor stood completely still as it watched him, waiting for it to get closer.

The xenomorph seemed hesitant at first, almost as if it recognised him, like it knew that he'd been its host and was reluctant to attack something that shared its DNA. It took a tentative step forwards, and the Doctor thought for a moment that perhaps it wouldn't try to kill him after all, but then it let out a vicious screech and began to bound towards him.

He turned and ran, his plan going exactly as he'd expected. He knew where he was trying to get to: back where the crates had been he'd seen the trickle of water running down through the rocks, and he knew it must be coming from a source higher up the terrain. As he reached the rocks he quickly began to climb higher up, using his sonic screwdriver to dislodge some of the stones and slow down the xenomorph as it tried to follow him. The trickle of water was getting heavier the higher he went, and he tried to follow it to its source. He passed by one relatively large pool of water that had formed in a dip in the rocks, and he opened one of the bottles of aspirin and emptied a few pills into it before carrying on. Further up there was another even larger pool which he emptied even more pills into, and as he kept going he realised that most of the rocks were wet now, the water spilling through from somewhere behind the rocks. He was having to climb one handed, and although the incline wasn't above forty degrees he still felt himself struggling for hold on the damp rocks. As he glanced down to see the xenomorph was gaining on him he felt a sudden burst of panic. _Can't lose it now,_ he told himself, _just keep going._

He finished emptying the first bottle onto the rocks that the water was spilling over, ensuring he remained upstream of the flow of water, and then opened the second one. He was now almost at the point where the terrain levelled out, and he knew the source of the spring must be somewhere nearby. He edged sideways along the rocks, searching for a point where the water was gushing through most strongly, and as he found it he opened the second bottle and emptied its entire contents into the stream of water that was spilling out. He stood above the spring, staring down at the xenomorph which was about to reach the wettest point of the rocks. It looked up at him and snarled, angry at him for making the climb up so difficult, and it was at that point that the Doctor switched the sonic screwdriver to its maximum setting and activated it.

The burst of high frequency sound waves was enough to trigger a minor rock slide, causing the vibrations of the smaller stones to dislodge some of the larger ones and send them hurtling down towards the xenomorph. The impact of the rocks didn't seem to faze it much, but that hadn't been the Doctor's intention. The shifting of the rocks caused the stream of water to change course, and the small pools of water suddenly spilled over the rocks and rushed down towards the xenomorph. It shrieked at the water made contact with its skin, but it kept going.

The Doctor watched it with a grim expression, hoping that this would be enough. The xenomorph had a tough exoskeleton and the aspirin wouldn't do much damage unless it could be absorbed. He pointed the sonic screwdriver at the rocks beneath his feet and activated it again, causing some of the rocks near the spring to give way. The larger rocks fell down to hit the xenomorph, and he saw faint yellow lines begin to glow on its head where the stones had scratched its skin. Normally, it would have been able to regenerate the cuts in a matter of seconds, but as the stones had come loose the rush of water down the slope suddenly intensified and began to spill over its head. It shrieked as the solution of aspirin and water was absorbed into its bloodstream and reacted with the acid, causing its movements to become erratic and jerky as the poison took effect.

It continued to try and claw its way up the slope for a few moments longer, snarling at him furiously, but then it finally went still and he watched it fall back down the slope to the bottom. It wasn't moving, and the yellow glow of regeneration energy from its cuts had faded completely. The Doctor breathed out a sigh of relief, certain that it was dead, but yet unable to feel any kind of elation about that fact. He may be safe now, but that didn't change the fact that something had had to die yet again. Not just this xenomorph, but the yautja as well, and the queen and the drones and everything else. When the yautja didn't get their own way they ensured nothing else could either, and so they'd destroyed everything. The Doctor felt a hollow pang as he wondered at how any species could enjoy death and destruction so much. Nothing had been achieved by what the yautja had done. There were no winners: both the yautja and the xenomorphs had ended up dead, and even though he felt relieved that he'd managed to survive it all he still hated all this destruction.

But still, he knew he couldn't have done anything differently to change how things turned out. Maybe he had failed to save Ellis and Adrick and the rest of the pirate crew, but he had at least managed to save Tevo, and that was something. Now it was time to get back to her.

He was just beginning to head back in the direction of the Tardis when he heard an alien voice speak from close behind him. "Very impressive, Time Lord."

The sense of relief he'd just felt was replaced by fear and frustration as he turned slowly to to look at the yautja who had spoken. So somehow there was still one of them remaining. He hoped that this one didn't want to kill him, but he doubted that would be the case.

The yautja in question had a series of repeating triangular designs on its mask, and he recognised it as the one called Guan'dlak. "I thought you were dead," the Doctor said, his tone sounding rather bitter.

"I wasn't there when Kai'tdesei activated the bomb," the yautja explained, "Actually, I was looking for you."

The Doctor was about to ask why when Guan'dlak suddenly made a move to take out his extending spear, and pressed the button on it so that it sprung out to point at the Doctor. The Doctor looked at it then back at Guan'dlak, his expression both angry and resigned. "Oh, that's…that's just not fair," he said in a tone that seemed utterly defeated. After everything else why did this have to happen now?

Guan'dlak kept the spear levelled at him. "Actually, I think it is fair, Time Lord," he said, "After all, I killed the serpent queen, one of the greatest trophies of them all, but I believed the serpent that had come from you would be even better. I had wanted to kill that too, at first. My name would have gone down in legend as the yautja who defeated _D'yeka,_ the Ultimate Prey, but then I realised that perhaps it wasn't the serpent that was _D'yeka,_ but you. It would seem that I was right. You killed Setg'inte, one of our most experienced warriors, and you survived the serpent being in you. Both remarkable things that showed you would make an excellent trophy. And then you went on to kill the most powerful serpent yourself, Time Lord, and now I will kill you."

Guan'dlak drew back the spear, preparing to strike, but just as he seemed to be about to make his move the Doctor shouted out, "Wait!"

The yautja paused, not as if he truly intended to let the Doctor live, but only as if he was giving him chance to say his last words.

"Fine, try and kill me if you have to," the Doctor spat angrily, "It's the only thing your species seems to be any good at. But don't lie to yourself that I'm _D'yeka_ because I can promise you I'm not."

"Who are you then?" Guan'dlak snarled, and the Doctor stared straight into the eyeholes of the yautja's mask as he answered.

"I'm much more dangerous then _D'yeka_ ," he said defiantly. "I'm the Doctor, and you really should have thought twice before hunting me."

The yautja just snarled again. "I think not, _Doctor_. Soon you'll be my prize," he said, once again raising the spear and preparing to ram it home.


	18. Going Home

The Doctor met Guan'dlak's gaze as the yautja prepared to strike him, determined to hold eye contact until the very last second. He didn't flinch as the yautja made a sudden, juddering move forward, before it suddenly stopped and went completely still. Guan'dlak seemed to sway slightly on the spot for a moment, and then dropped the spear and began to topple forward. The Doctor stepped to one side so that the yautja's body fell to the floor beside him, allowing him to see the hole from a concentrated plasma burst burned into the back of its head. The Doctor looked up to where Tevo was stood, still holding up the plasma gun. She'd come back for him. Again.

He grinned at her. "Nice timing, Captain."

She tucked the gun back into her belt and shrugged. "Well, given how things turned out the first time you said you were coming back, I thought it'd be best if I didn't go too far. Got half way to where you said the Tardis was and then realised you probably needed me," she said, returning his grin. She took a few steps towards him and stared down at where Guan'dlak's body was laying on the floor, before turning to frown at him slightly. "You don't mind that I killed it?"

He looked back at her, his expression suddenly sombre again. "Just this once, no," he replied, and then Tevo noticed the body of the xenomorph lying at the foot of the slope and raised an eyebrow at him.

"So what did you do to it, exactly?" she asked.

"Poisoned it," he said simply.

"Poisoned it?"

"Yes, poisoned it with a solution of aspirin and water. Aspirin's toxic to Time Lords, I just made sure it absorbed enough of the stuff to prevent it regenerating." He was still staring down at the xenomorph's body, looking rather regretful. "I wish there could have been some other way to do it, but there wasn't really much choice. It was an amazing creature, but still too dangerous to ever risk it getting off this planet."

Tevo looked from the xenomorph back to him. "You know, for once I agree with you," she said, but he still looked rather down about having had to kill it. She sighed, realising that no matter how much she disagreed with him she was never going to be able to change the way his mind worked. "Is it alright if we go now?" she asked, keen to get off this planet as soon as possible.

He looked back up at her, seeming to remember that they hadn't quite finished escaping yet. "Just one second," he said, before leaning down to wave his sonic screwdriver over the yautja's wrist console. "There, I've activated the self destruct sequence. All the yautja buildings on this planet are set to blow up in half an hour's time, just to make sure nobody can ever come back here and do what they've been doing again." Then he straightened up and began to walk away from the slope, and Tevo was glad to see his smile was back in place. "Right, now that that's sorted I've got to show you the Tardis."

As they approached the little blue box in the clearing the Doctor was delighted by the look of astonishment on Tevo's face. "But it's a blue box!" she kept saying, as if she couldn't quite believe it.

"I did tell you that," he pointed out as he walked to the door.

"I know, but _it's a blue box,_ " she said again, still unable to comprehend what she was seeing.

He flashed her a grin. "Just wait 'til you see inside," he said as he opened the door.

She followed him in and, as expected, her mouth fell open in surprise as she saw the interior. "It's…"

"Bigger on the inside," the Doctor finished.

"Not this big on the outside," Tevo said simultaneously.

They just stared at each other for a few seconds and then the Doctor laughed. "I like the way your mind works, Ailyn," he said, crossing over to the console, "Most people go with what I said. That was a refreshingly different way of saying the same thing."

She smiled at him and nodded. "Well, I guess I am just a bit different to most people."

He was still grinning. "I can't disagree with that," he said, pulling down a few levers on the console, "Right then, where should I take you to?"

"Well, away from here would be nice," she replied.

"I know, but where to exactly? Back to Basili?"

Her smile suddenly faltered and she frowned slightly. "I've just crashed one of the most prestigious ships in the galaxy and lost him millions of dollars worth of cargo. I don't think he'd be too pleased to see me right now."

The Doctor was still smiling. "Good," he said cheerily, "I hoped you'd say that, because I wouldn't have taken you back to him anyway. Can't have you keeping up this piracy thing."

She raised an eyebrow at him. "I take it you're not still going to hand me into the authorities?"

He grinned at her. "Captain Ailyn Tevo, slayer of yautja and xenomorphs? I don't think the authorities could handle you," he said mischievously, "But in all seriousness, I don't think there's any need to hand you in as long as you don't carry on with it. Which, I trust, you won't."

She nodded. "No, not if you don't want me to. You've just saved my life so I guess I owe it to you. And even if you didn't mind…well, I don't have a crew or a ship anymore, do I? How can I be a captain without either of those?"

"I suppose that's true," he said thoughtfully, "But there's still plenty of other stuff you could do. The Intergalactic Expeditionary Program is still recruiting, if you're interested. There's plenty of opportunities there."

"Hmm, I suppose," she said in response, but she didn't sound too enthusiastic.

He waited for her to tell him where he should take her, but when she didn't say anthing he tried prompting her again. "Alright, where do you want to go?"

"Well, where are _you_ going?" she asked.

He frowned slightly at that. "Why does that matter?"

"Well, I was kind of wondering if I could come with you," she said, looking at him hopefully, and the Doctor felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach as he realised that she wanted to know if she could travel with him. That was one thing he really wished she hadn't asked. Even though part of him wanted her to come, he knew he couldn't say yes.

He studied her expression silently for a few moments without responding. His thoughts were drifting back to that time, quite recently for him, when he'd asked Donna to come with him. He still wasn't sure what had prompted him to ask her - impulse, a knee-jerk reaction to the prospect of being on his own again - but in the end he was glad she'd said no. He didn't want another companion, not really. What he wanted was Rose, but of course he would never travel with her again now.

A sad sigh escaped him as he remembered what Donna had said just before he'd gone, _"Find somebody."_

And what had his response been? _"I don't need anybody."_

That wasn't entirely true. He knew it wasn't, but he also knew that for now at least he was better off on his own. He just wasn't ready to travel with somebody again; not this soon after Rose. And especially not with Tevo: a trigger-happy, relentlessly argumentative space pirate. As much as he liked her, he just couldn't see that working. They'd drive each other mad.

His cheerful expression had faded somewhat, and although Tevo had noticed she didn't comment on it. She took his lack of response as a 'no', and even though she was disappointed she didn't really know what to say to him to change his mind. If he didn't want her to come with her after the number of times she'd already saved his life, then what could she possibly do to convince him?

"Tell you what," he said, still trying to act cheerfully, "Why don't I take you back to Alhena Three first? Your father's about to face one of the biggest challenges of his career and it's probably about time you made up with him."

That was clearly just a way to avoid answering the question, not really telling her whether he was going to let her come or not, but the fact he hadn't given her a straight answer spoke for itself. She couldn't help but feel disappointed by that, but then she tried to consider what he had actually suggested and wondered if it would be a good alternative. Part of her _did_ want to go back: after all the times she'd almost died over the past couple of days she had found herself wishing she'd had chance to make up with her father. But still, it had been years since they'd last spoken, and she wasn't sure how she'd go about telling him how she was responsible for most of the pirate attacks on his ships. "I, er…I don't know about that."

"Come on," he said, "The lawsuit and the insurance payout are going to be massive. I think he'd be able to handle the stress much better if he knew he could stop worrying about his daughter on her way to some distant galaxy."

Tevo scowled slightly at that. Although she did wish there was a way to make things right with him, she wasn't convinced that anything was going to work. "But it's kind of my fault, isn't it? The lawsuit and all that?"

"All the more reason to say sorry," he said, pulling down a few more levers on the console and setting the Tardis in motion. A few seconds later the whooshing noise of the engine had gone silent again and the Doctor gestured towards the door. "There you are," he said, "Alhena Three, your dad's house is just out there."

"He lives in a castle."

"Well, castle then. You know what I mean."

Tevo just continued to look at him uncertainly.

"Oh, come on," he said, "That's your home out there, isn't it? You could go back and make things right again. Think about it, Ailyn. After all that experience you've gained from being a pirate, perhaps now you could do something helpful for your dad's company instead of Basili. How about a counter-piracy unit? Something within the law? I'm pretty sure he'd appreciate it."

Tevo chewed her lip for a moment and then nodded. "Alright," she said, "I guess I could talk to him, but no guarantees this is going anywhere. All I'm doing is letting him know I'm still in the galaxy and seeing if he wants to talk, but if he doesn't I'm coming straight back. Then you can take me somewhere else, I'm not staying here any longer than I have to." She crossed to the door and then paused for a second to look back at the Doctor, frowning slightly as if a thought had just occurred to her. "You're not going to be here when I get back, are you?"

He held her gaze for a few moments, and then decided he couldn't lie to her. "No, I'm not."

She looked a little hurt and confused once he'd said that. "Do you mind telling me why?"

He gave a long, sad sigh before answering. "I just…I don't travel with people anymore, Ailyn. It's nothing personal, I just…don't."

She just continued to look at him in silence for a few moments. "Alright," she said, her disappointment evident, "I'm not going to ask why again because it's obvious you don't want to tell me, but this isn't going to be the last time I ever see you, is it?"

He suddenly grinned at her again. "Course not. I'll have to come and check up on you at some point, make sure you've not slipped back into the old ways of piracy."

She grinned back. "Good," she said, walking away from the door and crossing over to him. "In that case, I'll say thank you now, until next time."

She held out a hand, apparently for him to shake, and he looked down at it in disappointment. "A handshake? Is that all I'm getting?"

She looked at him for a few moments and then said, "No, you're right," before wrapping her arms around him, and he returned the hug enthusiastically.

They pulled apart after a few seconds and he smiled at her. "That's more like it. After all those times I saved your life I think I deserve a bit more than a handshake. Although I probably ought to say thank you too; you did save my life quite a few times as well."

"I think we about broke even in the end, didn't we?" she said, turning away from him with a smile as she headed back towards the door.

"Yeah, I guess we did," he responded, but as she reached the door she paused again to look back at him.

"What about you? Have you got a home to go to now?" She seemed slightly concerned, as if she was worried about leaving him on his own.

He hesitated for a moment before answering, not really sure what he should say to that, but then decided on, "Something like that, yeah."

"Oh," she said, smiling slightly as she seemed to be satisfied with that answer. "Well, good. I guess I'll be seeing you then." With that she opened the door and turned to leave.

He watched the door swing shut behind her and stared at the space where she'd been standing for a few seconds, wondering why he'd decided to answer like that. He didn't really have a home anymore, not outside the Tardis at any rate, but he supposed there was one place in the universe he could perhaps consider to be home more than any other. Twenty-first century Earth: ever since meeting Rose that was the place he'd always gone back to. Every time he'd taken her home he'd gone with her too, and it had begun to feel like a sort of adoptive home for him as well. At first he'd thought that feeling would fade, now that she was gone and the Earth of this world wasn't her home anymore, but strangely it hadn't. Every time he'd felt certain he was going to die over the past couple of days Earth had been the main place he'd wished he'd have chance to see again. Even though he knew Rose wasn't there any more he still wanted to go back. Strangely, he did seem to think of it as a kind of home now. Of course it would never replace Gallifrey, but it was still somewhere he always wanted to return to after travelling across the universe.

He turned back to the console, and then grimaced slightly as he felt a throb of pain in his chest from the aftermath of the xenomorph being there. It was still aching slightly, but he knew that it wouldn't be bothering for him much longer. He pulled down one of the levers on the console so that the Tardis began to make its signature whooshing noise as it transported him back to twenty-first century Earth. He felt he was ready to go back. He'd had his adventure now – it had perhaps been a bit _too_ adventurous, in fact, far too many near death experiences to really be considered fun – and now he thought he'd rather like to go back to something a bit more familiar.

He flicked a few more switches on the console to do a scan of the area as he realised he was approaching London, hoping he would find something interesting to keep him entertained. Nothing dangerous this time, just something _interesting._ He'd had enough of trouble for now.

One of the screens beeped at him and as he read the message displayed on it he broke into a grin. "Unexplained plasma coils around the Royal Hope Hospital!" he exclaimed, "Excellent! That looks pretty non-dangerous and interesting. Much better than a sinister sounding distress signal, I don't want any more of those for a while. So, what could be causing that then?"

The whooshing noise of the engines faded as the Tardis materialised, and just as the Doctor was about to head to the door he realised he was still wearing the clothes that had been torn up by the yautja and his coat was covered in dirt. "Ah, hold that thought," he said, speaking to himself as he disappeared into the Tardis' wardrobe room.

He reappeared a few minutes later wearing a blue suit with a dark red tie, with a huge grin on his face to complete the look as he bounded towards the door. "Alright, let's see what all that's about," he said, already beginning to forget all about the yautja and the xenomorphs as he stepped out into the London street.


End file.
